dial tone

for those who don't know, i'm the sole income for my household for the time being. i'd stopped home phone service some months back simply because no one called on that line. we didn't use the long distance often enough to justify even the package deal we had. a year ago this month i rejoined the digital community by way of wireless leash ... um ... phone, i meant phone. long story longer, my income keeps me juggling finances to keep the past due notices at bay. in all my juggling, i dropped a bowling pin early this month and neglected to pay the past due on my cell service. as result, on the 7th or the 8th i discovered i couldn't make outgoing calls or send text messages. oops. i tested the water by calling from the first land line i could find. whew! incoming calls still okay. since my payday didn't fall again until the end of the following week, i was set to tough it out.
jump forward to friday the 16th. i call into the automated system to make my full payment ... zero balance. i go online to verify there isn't some mistake. zero balance. apparently on monday the 12th my security deposit was refunded to me, and service restored the following day. my service provider is very consistent in texting me with new balance when a bill cycles, and doing the same for payments made to the account. the deposit, so i'm told, doesn't fall under the same umbrella of required notification, whether it's mailed to me in form of a check or paid against existing billing. i could have been talking to you people (and checking voicemail as well as daily jokes) for nearly a week before i tried to pay the bill i no longer owed. at least it's working now ...