For instance, abortion is a huge deal to a lot of people. And to be honest, it’s an important issue to me. Not because I really enjoy the idea of someone having an abortion- not at all. I’m actually fairly anti-abortion in most cases. But I also recognize the need to allow and have available places where safe, legal abortions can be performed. Just because I don’t like it, doesn’t make it wrong. Opinions are like ass holes, everyone has one. And I’d say a good portion of the time, it’s going to be different from the person sitting next to you. And there’s not a damn thing wrong with that. But don’t expect me to sit there and tell you it’s ok to tell someone else what is allowable. It’s never alright to tell someone what they can or can not do with their own body. See: Minding your own damn business.

There’s also that whole gay marriage thing. I’ll be honest, I’m getting kind of sick of this “gay marriage ruins the institution of straight marriage” argument. Especially when the person spouting that nonsense is also chucking the bible at my head. The part of the bible that says homosexuality is “wrong” is pretty near to the section that says selling your daughter into slavery is perfectly alright. Or stoning your neighbor for working on the sabbath… that’s ok too! It’s the old testament people. You can’t pick and choose what parts to follow and not follow! It’s not ok to make up the rules as you go along! Marriage is a legal institution. Not a holy one. Some people might make marriage about religion. That’s fine. Gay people don’t have to get married in a church! Hell, straight people don’t have to get married in a church, I know I didn’t. When the topic at hand has no direct effect on your life, your marriage, your children, your whatever… stay out of it! Let me reiterate: Mind your own damn business.

Moral of the story… mind your own damn business.

My agent is Jason Dickelman. He is an independent agent for the State Farm Insurance company, and he’s located in Lafayette, Indiana.

A recap of my problem: In March of this year, I contacted Jason’s office and spoke to one of his employees, Alma. Alma was charged with the task of setting up my new home owners insurance policy. I explained to her over the phone that she would need to contact my loan officer so that the loan officer could give a total amount of money to collect at closing to the title company. (For the record, it was just over $700.) I also explained that my husband and I would be paying our insurance premium through our mortgage company.

Alma must have misunderstood. She told the title company that our first year of insurance was paid in full. However, we had not paid any money to State Farm at this time, nor had our mortgage company. The title company thought nothing was wrong, and therefor collected no money from us at closing. Three months pass with no contact from State Farm. I start getting cancellation notices from State Farm saying that our policy will be cancelled if they don’t receive a payment.

So I call Alma and ask her why I am receiving these notices. She assured me that everything was OK, and I should ignore the notices. A week passes, and then I get a call from Alma saying that State Farm has never received a payment from us for our homeowners policy.

I’ll point out now that until we got this call, we had NO IDEA that anything had gone wrong. The title company didn’t tell us about the call they got from Alma, they just told us we didn’t owe any money at closing for anything. (We assumed that what the seller was paying for closing costs covered everything we owed.)

I went back and forth over the phone with both Alma and Jason for two weeks. They told me there was nothing they could do unless I could pay $300 upfront. We don’t have that kind of money laying around. Heck, we don’t have any money laying around. Our budget has zero wiggle room right now for emergencies. (Though I do not consider an error that was not our fault to be an emergency on our part.)

A week passed with no news, and then I got an email from Jason himself saying that he had been attempting to call me and had not been able to get through. This I know to be completely false, because my phone is NEVER off, and his office has my correct phone number. (Every time I call to speak with Alma, she checks to make sure she has my correct number. I’ve also left my number with Jason on more than one occasion.) I called his office and asked to speak with him, but he was unavailable. I left a message with my number and waited. The next day, no call. I called once more and again left a message. Still no returned call.

Friday marked one week of no contact on his part. This is unacceptable. I have written both the State Farm head office, the State Farm help desk person (got their email via twitter) and Jason Dickelman himself. I have posted on both my personal facebook and the State Farm Insurance fan page. I have tweeted. On Monday morning, I will start calling again. I might even call tomorrow to see if anyone is in the office. I will not stop until I receive a satisfactory resolution to the problem I’m having.

I truly hope none of my readers ever have to go through a situation like this. It is extremely stressful and disheartening.

Then I get a call from my agent at my insurance company. Alma tells me that they’ve never received a payment on our homeowners policy, and that if we don’t make a payment TODAY, it will be cancelled- leaving us without home insurance. (Which is a requirement while we pay our house off.) Uh, what? Our insurance is set up so that when we make our mortgage payment each month, a portion of it goes into escrow to be paid to the insurance company once a year as an advance payment for the whole year of insurance. The first payment was supposed to be paid at closing, by the title company.

So I call Chase, because I had thought that it was their error. It turns out it’s not. Chase, though they oversee our escrow account, should not and will not make a payment to the insurance company until NEXT April 1. (Which will cover until April 1, 2013. See how that works? Our escrow builds up over the year to make the payment.) They have nothing to do with the payment that should have been made at closing.

Then I call our original lender. (The type of loan we got was first financed by company X, then bought out by Chase.) Patty tells me that the title company should have sent the payment to the insurance company. She has the receipt and HUD statement that says it SHOULD have been paid. But because errors occasionally happen, she calls the title company for me to figure out what the issue is.

The title company says that when they were tying up the final bits right before closing, they got a receipt from the insurance company saying that the first years payment had already been made. The thing is… it had not been paid. Not by me, not by anyone. So because the title company didn’t know otherwise, they thought we had already paid it, and told us to bring no money to closing. Which also meant that they didn’t send off a check to the insurance company, because why would they pay 2 years in advance?

Patty called me back to let me know all this, and I’m freaking out because I can’t make a $700 insurance payment with no notice. I had the money for it when we closed, because we thought it was supposed to be paid at closing. (We were told by the title company that it was taken care of by what the seller was paying. The seller paid all our closing fees.) But when they said we didn’t have to bring any money to close, we spent that $700 on stuff we needed for the house. (Plus it’s not like we would have saved that money for next year, escrow would have paid it.)

So I call Alma at the insurance company and let her know that I can NOT make a years payment today, especially not with no notice, and most especially when it’s not my fault it didn’t get paid in the first place. She says that they can set up a monthly payment plan, but that they need the back payment- what’s been due since March 31- so our policy doesn’t get canceled. That’s $300. Today. Or, if I set up a direct debit with the bank, it would “only” be $240. I told her the absolute soonest I can make a payment at all isn’t until July 15. We have other bills, and while all our stuff is paid and we live comfortably, we still live paycheck to paycheck. We have no savings. Bam gets paid July 1, but our mortgage is due, and we HAVE to pay that, no matter what.

And now I’m waiting on yet another call back from Alma, because I told her there was no way I could make a payment today, and I couldn’t even make a full $300 payment on the 15th. (We could swing maybe $100 and our budget would be tight.) I’m so worried that we’re going to get in trouble through Chase because of a policy lapse, and it’s not going to be our fault. I thought all this shit was done with and that we’d get to enjoy our house and our lives until we decide to sell this place and move again. But apparently, the world had other plans.

I need a margarita… in a serious way.