True Story: Red Lipstick saves lives in DR

frank12

Gold
Sep 6, 2011
11,847
29
48
I was saving this story for my book, but in the end, my editor left it out. Now, after just reading one of Criss Colon's funny stories this morning i decided to share this true story about my father moving back to the DR in 1993.

?Let me tell you a story," my father began, chuckling to himself while sipping his coffee, "when I left the U.S and moved back home to the island in 1993, a woman had been renting this house. She lived here alone, but she had a boyfriend living in Italy. This house had originally belonged to my parents, but after they passed away, my nephew had rented this house out to a Dominican woman, a local. When she found out that I was retiring and coming back home, she began making plans to move to Italy and start a new life there. She began making lots of phone calls to her boyfriend in Italy, talking for hours everyday. She was anticipating moving to Italy soon in order to be with him. She also had decided that she would leave the island and forget about paying the phone bill altogether.

After she left for Italy, the house had sat empty for a couple of months unoccupied before I got here. After I moved in, I went down to the phone company in order to get a phone hooked up. The phone company records of this address indicated that there was about $1500 dollars worth of long distance phone calls from this house.

I explained that the woman who had been living here had already moved out of the country and that only I was living here now. I also explained to them that I had never even met the woman. This was no consolation to the phone company who wanted their money for the outstanding bill. They explained to me that here, on this island, the phone bill doesn't get billed to any one individual but rather to the address of the home. So that, regardless how many times the house changes owners, it?s still billed to the address in which the phone is installed.

I demanded to speak to the supervisor, who, also reiterated and explained the same exact story to me. I left the phone company totally perplexed about what to do about a phone. In the United States, where I had just moved from, the phone bill is in a person?s name, not the person?s residence. Therefore, if you don?t pay your phone bill, you acquire bad credit. Here, however, they have no such system. So I went back down to the phone company about six months later, where I spoke to the general manager of the company. I suggested that the phone company and I split the phone bill in half, $900 dollars each. This way, no one gets totally stuck with somebody else?s financial irresponsibility. The manager said that unfortunately the rules are the rules, and in this case they?re very clear, if I want a phone, then I would have to pay the whole phone bill, period. I said that this was a poor economical decision on the telephone company's behalf, because all of my friends and family were back in the united states, and that the phone company would make their money back in no time from all of the calls I would be making to the states.

Naively, I thought it would be in the best interest of the phone company to have another paying customer rather than no paying customer at all--like the situation has been since I moved here six months earlier. Again, however, the general manger explained to me ?the rules are the rules.?

Not being able to do anything about it, I continued living in the house for another year and a half, before deciding to write the telephone companies president of Bonao, explaining to him the whole situation, indicating that its now been over two years, and that had I been a subscriber to the telephone company for that entire time, they would have made their money back many times over. I waited and waited, and finally, after months of waiting, I got a response from the phone company?s president, who explained to me that unfortunately, there were no exceptions to the rules.

A few more years went by, and by now, my nephew being familiar with my problem, went and found two off-duty telephone company workers, and offered them some money--underneath the table, of course--to fix my problem. They came by after work one afternoon with their company?s truck, and within about fifteen minutes, took the phone line from the next-door neighbor?s house and installed it into my house. The house next door was un-rented at the time and belonged to a relative of mine living in New York. I now had the next-door neighbors telephone number, and needed only their address as well. So I went next door, took their address off of their house, and put it here on this house. I threw my old address away.

Some years passed by and someone eventually moved into the house next door. They needed a phone installed, and were about to go down to the telephone company to get a phone hooked up. However, I explained to them what had happened years earlier and returned their address and their phone line back to them. Now, here I was back in the same dilemma all over again.

This time, however, my nephew suggested that I simply write a new address on the front of my house and call the telephone company up and have them come out and install a new line. Since I had no numbers to put on the front of my house, I simply went next door and borrowed my next door neighbor?s lipstick. I used it to draw the numbers 39 on the front of the house. Afterwards, I called the telephone company and asked them to come out and install a phone line. They cross-checked my address with known delinquent addresses in their computer and, thankfully, found nothing in their records regarding 39. The next day they came out and double checked my address with a list of delinquents, and then without hesitation, installed a new phone line.

That was 4 years ago, and i still have my telephone line. What i have learned in all of this is this: red lipstick is versatile, easy to apply, resilient to rain, tropical storms, mildew, and sun, and is incredibly durable and can save your life. I never go anywhere without lipstick in my pocket.?

Love Frank
 
Jun 18, 2007
14,280
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www.rentalmetrocountry.com
Two weeks ago I found a paper stuck into my gate, it was a bill from Ayuntamiento Municipal de Boca Chica for RD9600 for collecting the garbage dating back to 1/9/11.
In the 6 months that I've been here no one from ayuntamiento has come to pick up the garbage, hence I haven't even seen a garbage truck!!
I pay a guy RD25 to get rid of my garbage, they should send him the bill. ;)
 

dv8

Gold
Sep 27, 2006
31,266
363
0
now i understand why all the houses on our street have strangely arranged numbers...
 

young seniors

Bronze
Feb 1, 2012
559
0
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What an incredibly funny story Frank!! Still laughing...........glad it all turned out okay in the loooooooong end.
 

Criss Colon

Platinum
Jan 2, 2002
21,843
191
0
38
yahoomail.com
I think my last "Garbage bill" was up to 40,000 pesos!
They said if I didn't pay up, they would stop collecting.
I said "You Can't!"
You never STARTED!
15 years and counting!
I have, paid them to take away construction debries, and trees.
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