Sallie Mae: One Messed Up Bitch

Okay, so on Thursday, I wrote this post about the harrassment I've received from the Sallie Mae Corporation this week about my ongoing non-payment of my student loans.

It's a fairly complicated fiduciary matter, but allow me to sum it up thusly for the laymen in the Inertia audience...Sallie Mae shelled out $40,000 for me to get a useless Master's degree from USC, and now they want that money back. Unfortunately, at this time, I can no more afford to pay off my student loans than Donald Trump's April Visa bill. So, in other words, they can call my cell phone at odd hours all they like, but unless Harvey Weinstein has just bought my screenplay without my knowledge, they ain't getting a dime out of my any time soon.

This morning, I received the latest in a string of annoying, early phone calls. Well, for me, they're early. Today's arrived at 10:30, which doesn't seem early, but when I tell you that it's one of my two days off, and that I went to a party and drank last night, and that the children outside are already very noisy, maybe you will understand why I'd rather not take calls.

But, stupidly, in a half-awake daze, I answered the phone. A chipper lady informed me that Sallie Mae wanted her fucking money or she was gonna take my thumbs.

No, no, not quite. What she said was that she represented some mysterious, yakuza-like organization known as the "Ed. Fund" (or, in some circles, the Dark Army of the Night). The "Ed. Fund" was "concerned" about my payment of my loans, and wanted to advise me on some future action.

The first thing they suggested? That I start paying my loans! Isn't that weird? That some helpful company, out of nowhere, would take it upon themselves to call me early on a Saturday and instruct me to pay my Sallie Mae loans? For no benefit to themselves, just out of concern for me? It's sweet, really.

I think it's now safe to say that Sallie Mae has taken a personal interest in leaning on me for this money. I don't know why. Perhaps when I signed up for the loan, I accidentally checked the "three points off the vig" box, and my interest has now accumulated to several hundred thousand dollars. Perhaps a sworn enemy of mine works the phone bank at Sallie Mae. I'm not quite sure. But whatever the reason, they're after me, and I'm not sure I'll live out the weekend.

Anyway, I explained to the helpful and not-at-all obnoxiously chirpy "Ed Fund" representative that I had already requested a three-month deferrment, and that I didn't really need any more of their super-terrific awesome helpful advice. BUT SHE WASN'T DONE YET! No, no!

"Well, can you fax us in your economic hardship form, so we can verify it's filled out properly?"

What, what? Oh, come on! It's not even 11 in the morning on a Saturday. I refuse to even hear the word "fax" on my day off. Someone calling me, waking me upon a Saturday and telling me to go fuck myself would, to my mind, be more civil than calling me and asking me to fax them stuff.

It's just an unpleasant word. FAX. It sounds like some sort of rendering process or something. "Then, the hog fat slucces down this chute and enters the FAX machine. Here it will be boiled and the impurities will be removed. Please try not to vomit from the smell."

So I refused this request, because I'd already stuffed the form into an envelope and I didn't want to have to get it out again, and because I hated this woman deeply and wanted to get off the phone with her while I still had a few days left in my 20's. She seemed crestfallen, as if the opportunity to look over my personal financial information was genuinely exciting to her. Or maybe they teach you to say that line in that voice.

Anyway, I finally finally got off the phone, and I even made her promise to have Ed. Fund (aka "The 7 Tribes of Kutaku-Olima") stop calling me. You know, seeing as I haven't done anything wrong and don't have any money. Hopefully, they'll take it under consideration. If not, I'll probably be shot and my family will be sent a bill for the bullet. Oh, and that back $40,000 I owe.