Surprise! (No, thanks.)

The guy on the phone spoke in the condescending and threatening tone that is typical of professional debt collectors. I should know, I’ve certainly heard from enough of them. Not lately, though. The last time was many, many years ago, before I discovered Debtors Anonymous.

That happened in August 1992, at a time when my life truly had become unmanageable, as DA’s Step One says, and I was totally ready to “admit that [I was] powerless over debt” – or really, to be more specific, over a lifestyle based on debt. I didn’t know how it had happened or how to stop it, I only knew that somehow, despite a modest but adequate income, I couldn’t seem to pay bills on time or in some cases pay them at all, and every week I ran out of money before payday. Virtually every Wednesday evening I wrote a check for cash at the grocery store, then raced to the bank at noon on Friday to deposit my paycheck in time to cover the Wednesday deduction. If my boss was a little late handing out paychecks, or for any reason I couldn’t get to the bank on time, I had another bounced check and more charges to add to my debt load.

Not a fun way to live.

Thanks to Debtors Anonymous, I don’t live that way now. I pay bills on time or early, have an emergency fund, keep a detailed record of all expenditures, always follow a current spending plan, and never, ever get calls from collection agencies.

Which is the reason my first reaction to the unexpected call a few weeks ago was complete bewilderment. Second reaction was a faint sense that the amount he claimed I owed -- $95.00 – sounded a tiny bit familiar. Third reaction? Explosive, defensive anger: my pre-DA mode of dealing with collectors. It just popped right in, as if all the intervening years and healing experiences had never happened.

Especially when he kept insisting that I had been receiving and ignoring collection notices. Either he was crazy or I was. That was my view. His view was that I was blatently lying. THAT really made me mad! My days as a habitual financial liar were long gone. How dare he not know that!

I calmed down long enough to get the name of the oral surgeon’s office where the debt originated and a few minutes later learned that yes, I did owe $95 after insurance, and yes, they had been sending me notices, but I hadn’t been getting them due to an address error. $95 had a vaguely familiar sound because several months earlier I had seen it on a statement and asked the oral surgeon’s office about it. The clerk said they were waiting for an additional insurance payment and that when they received it, if I owed anything they would send me a final bill. No bill ever came. No closing accounting with payment due clearly listed. No pink or blue or yellow demands for money. No notices that the bill had been turned over to a collection agency. Nothing. Until the dreaded phone call.

The next day I mailed a $95.00 check directly to the doctor’s office. A week later I called to confirm they had properly recorded the payment and cancelled the collection agency, and that was the end of that. Except I really wanted to call that smarmy man back and make sure he knew that I hadn’t been lying about not receiving the bills. I wanted to, but didn’t, because he wouldn’t have believed me anyway. And I would have become defensively angry with him again. Not a good feeling.

The part of the whole experience that stays with me is how quickly my emotions snapped back into pre-DA mode. Because the source of my anger was mainly guilt. Despite the fact that I had never received those statements and hadn’t even been aware the debt existed, even though it had been more than a decade since the last time anyone had called me about an overdue bill, and no matter that I knew I could just simply pay the $95 that very day … regardless of all that, here came the guilt. Just a couple minutes of it, but enough to be unsettling.

Which greatly increases my delight at knowing that maybe as early as next month I’ll be debt-free for the first time in roughly 40 years. The only debt I have now, other than a secured mortgage, is a home equity loan from the credit union. It’s secured, too, but it feels like an unsecured debt, and it still demands a chunk of money every month. I’ve been paying ahead on it whenever possible and there’s not much left, so between my state and federal tax refunds (which are already in my bank account) and a three-paycheck month (if you have ever been paid every other week, you know what that means), and barring any unexpected major expense (are you listening, car?) it looks like the loan might be completely paid by March 31. If not that soon, within the next couple months. And then when I make my spending plans not one penny will have to be allocated to the past.

That is a great lesson I learned from Debtors Anonymous: how to live in the present instead of the past. In DA vocabulary debting means having to focus energy and dollars on paying for items bought in the past, or for former services rendered, or for financial assistance rendered at an earlier time. Consistent compulsive debting means always looking backward. Recovery in DA meant learning how to look forward, to trust that plans made could actually happen, to pay ordinary living expenses as they occur and have actual discretionary money left over ….

And to never again be afraid to answer the phone.

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