So, Saturday morning I left the house at 7:00 am and got to Raton at a few minuted after 10:00. Jim was still about an hour out, so I called the wife about a message she had left while I was out of service. It turns out that the heat wasn't coming on, the stove wasn't working, etc.....we're out os gas. Great. As is the wife's wont, she's talking ot me as if this were all my fault. I call the gas company who is open until noon on Saturdays and try to give them my Mastercard number so that they can get out there with a quickness. The rude asshole on the phone tells me he can't take a credit card over the phone without "authorization". I asked him, "What do you want fromme in order to authorize you to use this cc?". "We need a signed form here in the office" he says. I told him that was going to be a problem seeing as how I was 3 hours away. One of those snotty "Sorries" is all he offered. So, I had lunch with Jim (super rad guy) and drove home. I got there about 4:00 pm and since then have been keeping a fire going around the clock to keep the place warm. I've been bitching all winter that we haven't got a single damn flake of snow, so god decides as soon as I run out of propane he'll send a nice snowstorm my way. There has been no cooking except for the microwave and showers have been taken up the road at the in-laws' place. First thing this morning I go in a pay them $708.00 for some goddamned gas and the guy says, "Okay, we'll get it out there". I ask if he could perhaps approximate the delivery time. He says "One of these days this week". I said, "Y'know, I think I'm gonna need it pretty quickly". He askes how low my tank is and I told him it's dead-empty. He says "Sorry, you need to allow 5 to 7 days for delivery" and I told him how I *tried* to pay the other day but wasn't permitted to do so. The same wise ass "Sorry" is all I get. Now I am the type of guy who generally bites his tongue when someone is really pissing me off, but this time I just said "Hey, thanks for nothin'.....twice!" and I hear somebody saying something about "Well, we don't just keep trucks sitting around for..." and the rest is cut off because I'm already out the door. You know what, though? I called Amerigas and they "keep a truck sitting around" apparently because inside of 15 minutes there were at my house and the tank is full. I had to call the old company and tyell them that tyhey need to go ahead and credit that money back to my card and, ironically, it was the only time I spoke to them that they were actually at all courteous. Wow, and it's only Monday morning.
