I Guess That's Why They Call it CHASE

Like everyone, we get a lot of bills each month: car, house, insurance, utilities, phone, credit cards, blah, blah, blah. I pay everything on time or early, since I am neurotic that way. Every so often, like once a year, I overlook a bill, probably because it got lost somewhere in our home or even worse, ended up in my husband's briefcase and stayed there if he picked up the mail that day. Anyway, we are fabulous debtors.

So last month I must have lost the mortgage bill for our second home, which we share with a friend, in upstate New York. I never paid it, which I learned via the new bill for the next month. Wrongly believing my earlier payment would show up, I just paid the new bill. So then I went to the post office on Saturday and had to sign for SIX CERTIFIED LETTERS FROM CHASE BANK IN NEW YORK SCREAMING THAT I COULD LOSE MY HOME!!!!! The letter also contained a list of housing counseling agencies to help me out of what must be a messy downward spiral to the gutter. It said I had until the first of November to pay up, or else.

So then at 7:50 this morning I got a call from CHASE BANK IN NEW YORK, and a nasty man asked for my husband, saying, "HE MIGHT BE IN TROUBLE!!!!!!!" I explained that I pay the bills, and my husband was out, and please give me an update, and he said since I am not listed on the loan he could not talk to me, even though I got two certified letters personally addressed to me. He insisted that MITCHELL BETTER PAY UP OR HE IS IN VERY HOT WATER AND AT RISK OF LOSING HIS HOME...

I suggest another way: Have some nice lady or gentleman call and say, "It appears you overlooked your last payment, perhaps you could send it along." Maybe then there would not be one suicide every 40 seconds in this country.