Mar 01 2006 Within our family, I am sometimes criticized about how sensitive my sense of smell is. The slightest smell of certain things can be overpowering to me. This is, of course, coupled with a less-than-adequate ability to hear.

Less than a week ago, we installed a Sharper Image Ionic Breeze with UV and all sorts of bells and whistles in our bedroom. These dudes put out clean air, but they also produce ozone. When we got it, I cranked it up to full throttle for a few hours, but found that the ozone odor was too much for me and reduced the setting to medium. The ozone is still there, but at a somewhat acceptable level given my sensitivities.

The other day, I came into the kitchen. Marian had extinguished a candle in there about 10 minutes previously and I commented on the smell of something burning. Yesterday, when I was doing afternoon feeding in the barn, I raked up some loose hay and produced a spark for an instant, which worried the dickens out of me causing me to check and recheck that nothing had caught on fire.

Tonight, I had to go into the basement to look for some old tax records. I went up and down the steps four or five times. Each time, I smelled just a whiff of natural gas. On a couple of the trips, I convinced myself that it was ozone I was smelling from air being circulated into the basement from our bedroom. But it kept coming back to me that it was gas. Not strong, but there. Not always, but enough.

I called our HVAC service man who had me go down into the basement a couple of times to see if I still smelled it and to also look at the burners on the furnaces to see that they were lit. I did and they were. So, he came out here about 7:00 PM. He had his gas sniffer out and it smelled gas, but it came and went and he could not pinpoint the source. Finally, he took a butane lighter, the kind you use in a fireplace or BBQ grill, and ran flames up and down the gas pipe that went into one of the furnaces. Seems there was a gas leak indeed. The T connection coming from the gas line and into the furnace has a tiny crack in it…the gas lighter caused it to burn ever so slightly for a few seconds. He repeated this experiment a couple of times. Ooooo, look at the pretty blue flame coming out of the pipe!

The nose knows. I am vindicated once again.

Feb 17 2006


Ah, drink no wine before its time.

Feb 25 2006 It should not seem hard to close a credit card account that you don’t use, but it was hard for me with my American Express Gold Premium Plus card. Right there on the front of the card it says I have been a member since 1960. That was while I was a junior in college, 20 years old, driving a 1958 Ford, the year before we got married. It’s been a long relationship, not one to casually cut up and throw into the wastebasket.

I used to charge anything and everything on my AMEX card. There were those Membership Rewards points, you see, that I could convert into frequent flyer miles and the like. Then along came the cards that were (a) free, and (b) gave you back a percent of what you purchased in cash. And we don’t fly much anywhere these days. So, I switched to one of the new VISA cards and my AMEX card was relegated to second string.

Recently I downloaded my credit card information and saw that the annual fee of $150 was due for the AMEX card. Last year at this time, I rationalized and inertia prevailed for another year. This year, however, I thought I would go for it. I logged onto American Express and looked for ways to spend the final Membership Rewards points I had. It was harder than I had imagined to find stuff I really wanted, which was part of the problem with the card in the first place. But I did and spent all but spare change out of the account.

Then the hard part…calling in to cancel the card. The nice gentleman I spoke to asked why, after 46 years, I wanted to cancel. I told him. He asked if he waived $65 of the $150 fee, would that change my mind. I told him it would not.

The deed is done. The gold card is in tiny pieces in the trash. I no longer have unlimited credit, no due dates on payment, and the old cachet of being one of the original gold card holders.

Feb 16 2006

When we got home from our trip, I downloaded my credit card bills onto Quicken. I saw that we had two charges the same day from Barnes West County Hospital, each at $35.10. Before we left on vacation, I had called the hospital’s billing department and charged that amount. So, while the amount was correct, it was clear to me that they had double charged me.

Bright and early the next morning, I called the billing inquiries number for the hospital. I told the person there about the two charges on the same day for the same amount. She looked up the account and said that they only showed that they charged a single $35.10. I was asked what proof I had. I told her of the downloaded credit card statement, the two like amounts, the same date, ete. Could I fax that to her? What good would that do her since I told her all that was on the printout. I offered to give her the credit card transaction numbers, but she said that would do them no good. And try as she might looking through her records on the computer, she could not find that they had charged us twice. As far as she was concerned, it didn’t happen.

Somehow, she did not understand why I might be upset with a double charge that she could not find. When she started to tell me how their accounting system works and its complications, I pulled out the accounting card: “I taught accounting for 25 years and fully understand accounting systems. What I cannot understand is your losing the second $35.10 you charged to my credit card.” I offered to dispute the bill with VISA, but she didn’t want me to do that. At that point, I asked for a supervisor. However, the supervisor was on the phone. I left her a voicemail message regarding my problem.

The next day, the supervisor called me back. She said they had checked all their postings and that they could not find the second $35.10. Surely, she posited, this was an error at the credit card company and not at the hospital. Could I fax her my statement? No, since we don’t have a fax. Could she use the transaction numbers? No, they don’t have access to those at her end. So, I was told to call the credit card company who had obviously made a mistake.

Using my land line, I called the number on the back of my VISA card. When I explained the problem to the attendant who answered, she told me that she could not handle this and this would have to go to the resolution department. While I was being transferred, I called the hospital supervisor on my mobile phone. The resolution person came on the phone, a woman with absolutely no sense of humor or any customer service conversation training. I told her of my problem. She told me that the hospital made the mistake and she would charge back $35.10 against them and give me a credit. I told the supervisor who said that was fine.

So, I invested about 45 minutes in four conversations for a matter of $35.10 that could have been solved in five minutes in the first conversation. Next time, no Mr. Nice Guy. It’s right to the resolutions lady at VISA.