TOO FUNNY NOT TO MENTION

BAD PEGGY

Having finally gotten back from a holiday trip and into the usual routine, I was going to write about something else today.

I was thinking on my walk about how the people who run college football have completely fouled up the bowl games, which should have all finish up yesterday (January 2) but now will extend to next Monday night when LSU and Alabama play for the national championship in the Tigers' backyard in New Orleans.

I also have a couple of cars I want to comment on, including the VW Beetle I drove last month.

But this is just too good to pass up.

We paid off a credit card bill last month, but when we got the followup statement after I collected our mail, there was another small amount as an interest charge.

On what, I wondered.

So I called the 800 number on the statement to see what the deal was.

After punching in the last four digits of my account number (If that’s all they need, why are all those other numbers there?) and zip code and then hitting all the right buttons to get through the phone answering maze, I finally got an agent.

“Hello,” a charming, female voice said. “My name is Peggy. May I have your name?”

For a moment, I just couldn’t say anything.

“May I have your name please?” 

“Ummm,” I said. “Have you ever seen that ad ... “

“Yes,” the voice replied with a laugh. “I have.”

(I’m assuming here you have seen the commercials that feature a guy somewhere off in shack in Siberia identifying himself as "Peggy" giving callers with questions about their credit card accounts the run-around. But as I think about it, most of the people calling “Peggy” with their problem seem to be football personalities like Lou Holtz, Bobby Bowden, and Kirk Herbstreit, so maybe they’re just on sports broadcasts.)

She allowed as how she had gotten reactions similar to mine from other customers, but she enjoyed having the name, even though the “Peggy” in the credit card ads on TV is not exactly a very good example of credit card service.

Any way, we had a very pleasant conversation, and she said she was wiping that interest charge off the books because I was “such a good customer.”

I have to admit that sounded like something the bad “Peggy” would say, but as long as she was tending to the matter I was happy.

I wonder if this is a sign of the way things are going to go this year.