The flip side

In my younger years I was a bill collector. Actually not just a bill collector, I was THE Lisa Cody. No one and nothing was going to stop me from getting those deadbeat debtors to pay up! I was the top female collector in the company. They were nothing but scum, purchasing diamond rings and mink coats on their credit cards and then not paying the bill. They were thieves and Lisa Cody was going to teach them that crime does not pay. Day after day hour after hour I dialed the telephone numbers of the most low down dirty debtors in the land and laid down the law. I tracked them down, flushed them out, and dug them up. Whatever it took to get them to pay. I'd call them at work. I'd call their neighbors. If they lived in a small town I'd call the local “Piggly Wiggly” and asked if anyone there knew how I could get in touch with them. They could run but they could not hide. I was cold. I was heartless. I was the BEST.

I'd heard it all. The sad stories about how they had to use their credit cards to pay the rent and electric bills because they had been laid off. They had all kinds of sad stories of divorce, death or destruction causing them to have to turn to their credit cards to pay bills. Oh woe was them... I cared not about their sob stories. It was my job to get them to make an arrangement to pay their bill and that was all I wanted to hear. “Make an arrangement to pay your bill.” I would say over and over again with increasing venom and volume. “Make an arrangement to pay your bill. There are laws in this country and you're not bigger than the law. You had your time to play and now it’s time to pay.” In training they had equipped the collectors with these nifty clichés to throw at the debtors and I used them for all they were worth. I was cold. I was heartless. I was the BEST.

I got hate mail. They would return my “promise to pay” letters with a skull and cross bones drawn on. They would threaten me on the phone saying, “I know where you live, Lisa Cody.” One particular deadbeat even went so far as to send me black roses. I was cold. I was heartless. I was the BEST.

I was developing a drinking problem. I was smoking three packs of cigarettes a day. I was being asked to leave my parent’s house if I couldn't remember that I was only “Lisa Cody” ten hours out of the day. I was cold. I was heartless. I was a MESS.

I quit my job as a bill collector. I didn't give the company any notice that their best female collector was leaving. I just finished my shift one day, told the boss I wouldn't be back and left.

The big money that was coming in from being the BEST stopped coming in. I hooked up with a real jerk. He left me just as suddenly as I had left bill collecting. I started using my credit cards to pay debts that he had left behind. Then one day... a bill collector called me. He was cold. He was heartless. I was no longer the BEST.

It wasn't nice on... the flip side.