Guilt, the Catholic Church and Sprint

Being raised Catholic has an affect on the personality, become the most devout Catholic ever, or you up and leaves the Church (not that they ever technically let you not be a Catholic anymore; the Vatican always keeps you in their census count). Everyone who was raised with the Holy Roman Church (Jesus wasn't actually from Rome. I always found it strange that the seat of the empire that was the most anti-Christian became the seat of Christianity. Maybe the Church leadership--the humans, not God--forgot about that, like they forgot about the Commandment against violence during the Inquistion) in their childhood bears its imprint. Some people, especially those who were formerly altar boys bear a particularly unfortunate imprint, others are affected only subtley.

Fortunately, I was never an altar boy--being from the metro Boston area, most of the priests I had been around growing up were swept up in that certain scandal, so it's a good thing that I avoided this sacred duty. The main trait that the Catholic Church has given me is an unshakable sense of guilt. And, no longer being a believer, the confessional box just doesn't work.

Consequently, I have to solve my guilt issues by actually redressing whatever I've done wrong--it would be so much easier to just go and tell a priest, generally. Unless of course I was younger and the priest liked to... Well, never mind that.

In any case, guilt. I feel guilty. I just found that over the past year a bunch of people have signed up to be subscribers to my blog. How flattering! But how guilt inducing as well, given that I haven't written anything in months, and the most recent entry described a bag of Turkish macaroni. So I've decided that I plan to actually update my blog routinely. What will I talk about? I don't know. Will I follow through? That I really don't know. But look--here's an entry.
But what to write about? So many things to choose from, so many different styles people have. Some people use their blogs to write about small minutie that they notice--but can I be up do that? Doesn't that mean I have to notice minutie all the time? Some people put up whimsical writings on their various activities. Maybe I should do some whimsy. Some people write about important news issues of the day. But why would you want to come here to see that? Look up my articles at the People's Weekly World (better yet, look up all the articles at the PWW. Or even better than that, take out a subscription at only $30 a year). Of course, that is a respectable news source, and I therefore have to avoid using terms like "fucking asshole" or "shitty bill" or "dumb shitass GOP." Maybe my blog posts could be an outlet for that sort of thing?

Speaking of vulgarity, I want to mention how much Sprint, the mobile phone "provider," sucks. I have spent quite literally hours on the phone with them, trying to get them to waive a $200 fee that they imposed for "early termination" of my contract. Foolishly, I thought that since it was a two-year contract, and that three years had elapsed since I had started the contract, there would be no early termination fee. How was I to know that a year after the contract went out of existence it could still be terminated at all, much less early? According to Sprint, the contract was extended because...they gave me shitty service! That's right. They overcharged me--countless times--and when I called in to get a credit on the overcharged amount, they gave me $75 back. This somehow renewed my contract...maybe? I am not sure, since I've spoken to dozens of people at Sprint, all of whom seem to have their own ideas about what exactly the contract is, why I've been charged so much money, exactly who's responsibility it is to help customers. None of their ideas seem to coincide with the general idea of the term "contract," though.

The service was cancelled when I switched over to Verizon (no one bothered to tell me that Cingular was unionized, of all the labor activists I know). I found certain thing that the Sprint representatives kept telling me to do foolish to the nth degree: After explaining to them how I had switched over to Verizon, etc., they would say something like, "Sir, we can't activate your line again until you pay in full." What?! They want to activate my line again? Shit! I can't get them to leave me alone. They kept repeating that once I paid in full, my line would be reactivated.

Great. Not only are they ripping me off, they won't let me leave their network. Kind of like the Catholic Church. Except the rape is economic.

So there's my blog; I hope you enjoy it. Leave me some comments, and perhaps guilt will mobilize me to write again soon.