THINGS THAT IT TOOK ME OVER 50 YEARS TO LEARN: by Dave Barry

16 THINGS THAT IT TOOK ME OVER 50 YEARS TO LEARN: by Dave Barry ,
Nationally Syndicated Columnist

1. Never, under any circumstances, take a sleeping pill and a laxative on the same night.

2. If you had to identify, in one word, the reason why the human race has not achieved and never will achieve its full potential, that word would be "meetings."

3. There is a very fine line between "hobby" and "mental illness."

4. People who want to share their religious views with you almost never want you to share yours with them.

5. You should not confuse your career with your life.

6. Nobody cares if you can't dance well Just get up and dance.

7. Never lick a steak knife.

8. The most destructive force in the universe is gossip.

9. You will never find anybody who can give you a clear and compelling reason why we observe daylight savings time.

10. You should never say anything to a woman that even remotely suggests that you think she's pregnant unless you can see an actual baby emerging from her at that moment.

11. There comes a time when you should stop expecting other people to make a big deal about your birthday. That time is age eleven.

12. The one thing that unites all human beings, regardless of age, gender, religion, economic status or ethnic background, is that, deep down inside, we ALL believe that we are above-average drivers.

13. A person who is nice to you but rude to a waiter is not a nice person. (This is very important. Pay attention. It never fails.)

14. Your friends love you anyway.

15. Never be afraid to try something new. Remember that a lone amateur built the Ark. A large group of professionals built the Titanic.

16. Men are like fine wine. They start out as grapes, and it's ip to the women to stomp the crap out of them until they turn into some thingAcceptable to have dinner with.

The ever delicious Ashley spoke to me today and advises that the following note has been left on our door -

After recently reviewing you account, it appears as if you have a credit on your account. We appreciate and want to thank you for paying and pre paying your rent on time. However we do ask that you pay your rent every month off of the statement that you receive in the mail. If you loose your statement or if you do not receive one please let us know, and we will be happy to give you your current balance! your current credit is ____$1.45___! Again please pay only the amount that is due, and if you are unsure of your total please give us a call. Thank you in advance for your cooperation.

I replied with the following. It makes me so mad that a company would send such a dumb note. Frankly, I don't need to be told that my account is in credit, just take it off next month! But not only that, but they whine about over paying??? OMG!

Hello ,

I just wanted to drop you a quick note regarding the information your office left at my apartment regarding the $1.45 credit I have.

I would like to explain how the credit came to be on the account, and would love to hear your suggestions for how to avoid future occurrences of this issue.

As I have explained to all your staff, several times, I travel; a lot. Anything from 50% to 100% of my time can be spent away from home, so the statement you mail me is of little use to me, and I invariably don’t receive it in time.

If I’m out of the country, I often will not have the ability to call the office to request the amount, and when I do try (as indeed I did this time), I get an ‘answering service’ who are unable to provide me any assistance.

For the penultimate billing period, I tried emailing one of your team to request the total amount owed, followed up with another mail requesting the information, and did not receive a reply.

I pay my rent, most often via your website. A website, incidentally, which cannot tell me the total amount owed. I even considered paying by recurring payment thus avoiding this repeated issue each month, but alas, the recurring amount is static, and my account is not (that one baffles me even today).

So, the only option I could think of, was to pay an amount knowingly above that owed, thus ensuring that the amount was covered.

You duly have advised me that this is not conducive with your account system and advise me to ensure I pay only the correct in future; a somewhat strange note to leave a resident, but I’m sure much nicer than the one you would have left me should me account have been short by $1.45, or not paid at all.

So, what I was wondering is, what are your proposed actions to help remedy this situation, and what steps are you taking to make this process ‘friendlier’ for your valued residents?

If you cannot see anything you can do, and have no plans to make changes to your systems to facilitate this issue, then I would kindly request that you do not leave me such a note at my home again.

Thank you for your time.

James Lane
Unit 2131