If you take me to Court, I shall plead insanity.
The UNEDITTED letter to the people to whom I owe money:
Dear Sirs,
I have recently received a letter from yourselves declaring an intention to start legal proceedings over an amount which I thought was already paid, and issuing a £150 fine. Having had recurring problems due to letters not being received combined with the fact that this is a quarterly bill and I can never remember which month I have to pay it on, I made a note on every calendar in the house and sat down at the beginning of January to send a bank tranfer. I vividly remember this as I can recall sitting at the computer at work thinking "finally I'm getting this right".
However, this must not have been received, hence the letter I received this morning. Having spoken to one of your colleagues, I was advised to get in touch with yourselves via email. I have also IMMEDIATELY sent a sum of £220.64 to yourselves via bank tranfer (please could you confirm receipt via email, as my continual bad luck regarding any and all transactions on this account is now starting to leave me somewhat paranoid) but I cannot realistically afford a further £150 as, since they starting cutting hours at work six months ago, £150 is pretty much my entire food/travel/disposable budget for a month and, when viewed from a perspective of relative financial status, this is one heck of a price to pay for an invoice not even 1 month overdue. (Here I know some people would spout some legal garbage about 3 months being the minimum time before serious clampdown can be put into effect, but I really hate legal garbage and the people who spout it, so instead I am going to offer up my usual recipe of total self-depreciating honesty with a liberal peppering of totally unnecessary lyricism, but as a writer I feel the need to do that with everything, so on the bright side even if nothing can be resolved I should have at least provided you with the most entertaining correspondence of the day.)
Had I received notification sooner I would have resolved the situation ASAP, however once again that usually reliable system of 'envelope through door' seems to have gone kaput and this honestly is the first I've heard of it. I have of course by now fathomed that you are probably sending plenty of letters, and with the postal strikes now over it can't even be down to that, so I am simply putting this one down to my own bad luck. I have reached the conclusion that the letters are simply sliding under furniture, or getting bundled up with the junk mail and accidentally binned, or maybe the cat eats them. I really can offer no further explanation. It simply comes down to me giving you my word that I honestly thought I had paid it and asking very very very nicely that you let me off the £150 on account of it simply being a LOT of money to suddenly find oneself oweing due to an unnoticed bank error, and missing a payment by three weeks is scarcely a crime worthy of having to spend a month living off SPAR baked beans and mouldy Dairy-lea spread scraped off the lid of the swing top (it really isn't, I looked it up in the Geneva Convention).
I realise my account is probably, by now, covered in red marks, crossings out and is starting to resemble a bad piece of junior school homework, but understand this is not because I am unwilling to pay. You would only have to check my credit history to notice that I pay EVERYTHING on time via standing order and am only having trouble with this one due to the unusual timing, the lack of a standing order facility, and the fact that my flat seems to eat your letters. I would ask you to email me the invoices instead but I'm guessing you use the same system for everyone and this would mess up the routine, so I can only promise you that I am trying to keep a track in advance of all due dates, while simultaneously appealing to your better nature to let me off the fine so that I can afford to a) eat and b) pay the next one on time.
With sincerest apologies for financial tardiness and verbal incontinence,
Elizabeth Adnitt (account K114)
'Using humour as a defence mechanism since 1984.'
Don't worry, I cut it down before sending it, but sometimes it honestly works (see Tesco case of 2008).
AAAAAAAAAAND..... Result! They let it go. Proof that I have gained the mystical ability to talk my way out of anything.
I am good with words. I use them to seduce and subdue; to subvert and manipulate; to control and contaminate - and I am so very very good at it!
Dear Sirs,
I have recently received a letter from yourselves declaring an intention to start legal proceedings over an amount which I thought was already paid, and issuing a £150 fine. Having had recurring problems due to letters not being received combined with the fact that this is a quarterly bill and I can never remember which month I have to pay it on, I made a note on every calendar in the house and sat down at the beginning of January to send a bank tranfer. I vividly remember this as I can recall sitting at the computer at work thinking "finally I'm getting this right".
However, this must not have been received, hence the letter I received this morning. Having spoken to one of your colleagues, I was advised to get in touch with yourselves via email. I have also IMMEDIATELY sent a sum of £220.64 to yourselves via bank tranfer (please could you confirm receipt via email, as my continual bad luck regarding any and all transactions on this account is now starting to leave me somewhat paranoid) but I cannot realistically afford a further £150 as, since they starting cutting hours at work six months ago, £150 is pretty much my entire food/travel/disposable budget for a month and, when viewed from a perspective of relative financial status, this is one heck of a price to pay for an invoice not even 1 month overdue. (Here I know some people would spout some legal garbage about 3 months being the minimum time before serious clampdown can be put into effect, but I really hate legal garbage and the people who spout it, so instead I am going to offer up my usual recipe of total self-depreciating honesty with a liberal peppering of totally unnecessary lyricism, but as a writer I feel the need to do that with everything, so on the bright side even if nothing can be resolved I should have at least provided you with the most entertaining correspondence of the day.)
Had I received notification sooner I would have resolved the situation ASAP, however once again that usually reliable system of 'envelope through door' seems to have gone kaput and this honestly is the first I've heard of it. I have of course by now fathomed that you are probably sending plenty of letters, and with the postal strikes now over it can't even be down to that, so I am simply putting this one down to my own bad luck. I have reached the conclusion that the letters are simply sliding under furniture, or getting bundled up with the junk mail and accidentally binned, or maybe the cat eats them. I really can offer no further explanation. It simply comes down to me giving you my word that I honestly thought I had paid it and asking very very very nicely that you let me off the £150 on account of it simply being a LOT of money to suddenly find oneself oweing due to an unnoticed bank error, and missing a payment by three weeks is scarcely a crime worthy of having to spend a month living off SPAR baked beans and mouldy Dairy-lea spread scraped off the lid of the swing top (it really isn't, I looked it up in the Geneva Convention).
I realise my account is probably, by now, covered in red marks, crossings out and is starting to resemble a bad piece of junior school homework, but understand this is not because I am unwilling to pay. You would only have to check my credit history to notice that I pay EVERYTHING on time via standing order and am only having trouble with this one due to the unusual timing, the lack of a standing order facility, and the fact that my flat seems to eat your letters. I would ask you to email me the invoices instead but I'm guessing you use the same system for everyone and this would mess up the routine, so I can only promise you that I am trying to keep a track in advance of all due dates, while simultaneously appealing to your better nature to let me off the fine so that I can afford to a) eat and b) pay the next one on time.
With sincerest apologies for financial tardiness and verbal incontinence,
Elizabeth Adnitt (account K114)
'Using humour as a defence mechanism since 1984.'
Don't worry, I cut it down before sending it, but sometimes it honestly works (see Tesco case of 2008).
AAAAAAAAAAND..... Result! They let it go. Proof that I have gained the mystical ability to talk my way out of anything.
I am good with words. I use them to seduce and subdue; to subvert and manipulate; to control and contaminate - and I am so very very good at it!