If I had one wish/mafia favor to call in...

Tuesday evening I was fervently attempting to do some studying in my room when I hear a knock at the front door.  The door opens, and there stand two RAs looking for "Lonnie," so up from my bed I spring (knowing that my roommate would have no clue) and intercept the RAs.  The girl says that I have to sign a form on her clipboard saying that I've received the letter she's handing me.

That's never good.  I got served.

The letter, and a subsequent notice in my mailbox the next morning, inform me that I owe the Office of Student Accounts $670.  Now, if you've been tracking the story a while, you know that I'm on a wonderful scholarship here at UCA and I have been blessed to never have to pay more than parking permit and incidental stuff like that.  And books... but that's another story.

So Wednesday morning I trucked myself down to Student Accounts and asked what was going on.  The woman at the front desk was informative, though she obviously wields no power.  She told me that I owed the money for my private room.  I said that was odd, since I've never had to pay that before, and, in fact, have a scholarship from the Honors College for that.  Indeed, the building I live in only has private rooms, because it's built into apartment-style suites, not dorm-barracks.  (Ok, I didn't say all of that, but keep up.)  She said that I had received the scholarship, but that it had been returned to me in excess aid a while back, and that the charge for my private room didn't come through until 24 days later.

So I went to the Housing Office.  I told them the same story, that apparently I had mysteriously received the money, then been charged, and that I do, indeed, owe them the money they gave me.  I told the woman that I've never had the problem before, I had noticed that my excess aid check was larger than I expected, but thought maybe it was for hours covered that didn't enroll, etc.  She said that I should double check that kind of thing, not that they send an itemized list-- it's a check in an envelope.  

Apparently it's my fault that Housing (and subsequently, Student Accounts) screwed up and I didn't catch their negligence, so it falls on me to pay them back money that has been long-since pumped back into the capitalist system.  Remember the speeding ticket incident?  Yep.

It's all been a frustrating ordeal.  I know that I can get a student loan to cover it if I can't convince anyone that I have ties to people who will bust their knees if they don't waive the fee.  But I'd rather not go into debt because of someone else's screw-up.  It's bologna sandwiches!

And that will be all.

T