Why doesn't anybody like me?

Now that I've guilt tripped you into reading this (or possibly you don't give a rat's butt about me, but are reading this out of sheer curiousity... either way, the purpose is served. game, set, match), I'm going to dump on you all of the pain and personal anguish that I've experienced these past nearly (gasp!) 20 years. I use that term loosely, because when I say "20 years," I really mean these last few months where I have gone through a really annoying ordeal with a Student Loan!

Oh man, what a PAIN in the butt just getting a student loan is!! (Not to mention getting RID of one, but we'll get into that later) First of all you have to go through all sorts of trouble finding loans, filling out applications, mailing letters (nobody actually reads them), sending faxes (nobody actually recieves them), and crying countless tears (did anybody here used to watch that show "Hey Dude?" That was a good one). Most of the banks and loan organizations I checked out had outrageous interest rates, most of them over 23%, and I was getting to the end of my rope. But finally, I finally found a student loan that I could apply for through my school with a pretty low interest rate, plus I didn't have to start paying it off until after graduation. That didn't seem like too big of a deal. Well, I guess I had no idea.

After filling out the initial papers, which were pages of questions, question after question, about me, about my family, my income, my acedemics, my religion, my sexual preference, how many times a day I break wind... anything, ANY shred of information they could possibly get their hands on in an attempt to steal my soul from me.

After filling out all these papers, mailing them in, and thinking the worst was over, I recieved more letters in the mail. MORE questionnaires, surveys, and an online "test" that I had to take. The questions on the "test" were actually kind of amusing, here is an actual example of the types of questions that I was subjected to:

• Do you have to pay back this loan?
  

  (a) no
  

  (b) not if I don't graduate
  

  (c) only if I feel like it
  

  (d) this loan must be paid back, even if this loan organization turns out to be a big scam, and representatives from this company come and loot your home each week.

Well, I got a 100% on the test (which I was pretty proud of myself about), but needless to say, all of this was starting to seem a bit shady and I was getting a little nervous. Anyway, I decided to just let it be, and follow through what I had started, because I had gotten this far anyway. Well a couple of weeks went by, and I finally got a letter from them stating that I had (dun dun DUN!) been accepted for the loan! YES! And the amount of $1,150.11 would be credited to my account! ALRIGHT! wait... $1,150.11? Are you saying I went through all of this trouble, and this stupid loan isnt even going to cover a third of my tuition for ONE SEMESTER?!? okay... I'm wigging out here, but do you understand what a blow this was? Here I went through all this trouble, and these bloodsuckers won't even loan me enough money to cover my bill! What is the point of getting a loan if it won't cover your bill!? Ok, well I decided to just accept the money, and try to figure out another way to cover the rest of my bill. So I checked the box saying to disperse the funds, and sent it on its way in the mail

[feel free to skim the next two paragraphs guilt free. They are very boring.]

To make a long (long long long) story short, my grandfather agreed to help me pay ALL of my tuition! What a great guy! So now, I don't even need the loan! So I tell myself, as soon as I get the finalizations, I will just cancel the loan. Well, weeks went by, and no notification came. In fact, on the web interface for the school there was no indication that the loan had been processed, and nobody I talked to in the financial aid office knew anything about it. So I figured that it had not gone through, and I didn't have to worry about it, after all, bills needed be paid already, so getting a loan would be almost useless at this point. I breathed a sigh of relief and went on my way, but three weeks ago I got notification that the loan was dispersed!! WHAT!? Okay, now I need to cancel this loan!

On the notification, it said that I had 120 days to cancel the loan, so the next day I sent a letter of cancellation to the school's financial aid office. Apparently they never recieved that letter, so I called the number on the loan dispersment notifacation, and spoke to a lady there, who was very rude to me, and told me that if I wanted to cancel this loan I would have to... get this... put a check in the mail TOMORROW for the amount in full! According to her, the loan was dispersed in mid November, even though they never told me! However I told her that's still not 120 days, and finally managed to speak to a manager, who said to call financial aid. I called them, and told them I already sent a letter, finally they said to fax it over. I faxed it over, 3 times, until it finally went through. I called again, and nobody answered! Today I called again and the girl said they never saw a fax OR a letter, she made me fax them ANOTHER letter, and said if I wanted to cancel this loan I would have to pay a huge fee, and besides, she didn't have the authority to cancel it anyway! Okay, who the heck do I have to talk to to cancel this stupid loan!?!? Finally I got transferred to a counseler who said, do you want this loan cancelled? Okay, it's cancelled.

[story gets less boring right here, and contains two notable cameos]

GEEEEZ!! why was that so hard!?? I guess the moral of this story is don't go to college. Live on the street and eat out of the garbage. It may not be as classy or stylish as living with the rest of the working class, but I'm sure there is a whole lot less frustration living that way. Oh, and don't think I'm dissing people who don't go to college! Ian didn't go to college, and neither did uh... Corky. See? There's lots of successful people out there without a college education. Anyway, I'm sorry this story doesn't have a more funny ending, and/or an ending that coincides with the topic of the article, but you probably stopped reading a long time ago anyway, and I'm tired of typing, besides this whole story is really just an effort to increase my eZabel points anyway, so peace out for the kids.