Just like Katniss I've been dropped into the arena for the second time; and why yes (SPOILER ALERT) my arena is a clock. However unlike Katniss I'm not fighting for survival, just trying to pay back my student loans.
This post was published on the now-closed HuffPost Contributor platform. Contributors control their own work and posted freely to our site. If you need to flag this entry as abusive, send us an email.

Just like Katniss I've been dropped into the arena for the second time; and why yes (SPOILER ALERT) my arena is a clock. However unlike Katniss I'm not fighting for survival, just trying to pay back my student loans.

The student loan tribute is just like the characters from District 2. Rude, mean, conniving and trying to suffocate me (not with their bare hands) but with interest rates; that seems to be the strategy of their games.

I called sometime last week and robotically hear the voice on the other end of the line spit out you'll be paying $980 dollars a month come December.

It's alright, don't worry I don't like eating... or gas for my car... and you know electric is overrated. I kindly ask the woman on the other end of the phone,"Can I get on the till-you-die plan" (hoping for a laugh to kill the tension) but also kind of serious. "We don't do that sorry" was what I heard. I mean I figured that there wasn't actually a "till you die" category but can I do any type of consolidation and payment plan?

Nope, but you can pay off all your loans in 12 years!

Well I'll actually be dead from stress by then so you might as well put me in the "till you die category," thanks.

The woman seemed annoyed when I was just asking here to walk through the facts and figures with me. She muttered through them, also saying I could find them on my bills and hung up. This has happened with three separate people, on three separate occasions.

On a serious note, I get it, you talk to people day in and day out about their student loans, and you probably hear a ton of tears and sad stories. But there is a point where you're working in a customer service job and -- newsflash -- you're going to have to talk to people. If you don't like socializing with people then maybe you should really start to consider another career path.

I have never claimed to be a great mathematician or really good at numbers, at all. I knew that the school that I attended was a lot of money but there is an extent where I need help crunching the numbers because it isn't easy for me. So yes, I'm going to call (I sound like Minnie Mouse on the phone) and ask a million questions, because I want to know exactly what is going where, when and why.

Then I get the bill, and it says I have zero balance. I've been paying the interest only for a while everything on time. Still eating and driving places, awesome, love it.

But I get a call the next day telling me that my account is delinquent.

Even Einstein didn't have to be around to let me know that zero and delinquent don't add up. So I reference the latest bill, and explain my situation. To which I hear on the other end of the phone "Well this is what the computer is saying." Well, that same computer printed my account balance and said zero, so #sorryimnotsorry.

Why is there information in a thousand different places? Why can't I just have the account information, a pay due date and then be done with it?

I went to school in 2008, and I'll air some dirty laundry here to say that one of my loans has a (by no exaggeration) 10.27 interest rate.

Yeah -- I know you're having problems reading that, I had a minor attack typing it. The worst part about the interest rate is that it is actually considered a reasonable loan to pay back. I know that I am not the only person in this boat. If you Google 'help with private student loan consolidation,' the Internet is swarming with salliemaesucks.com and manvsdebt.com forums about how people need help and fast because they cannot afford the gripping amount that their student loans are.

Katniss, just had 22 tributes to battle, and none of them add up to the ultimate enemy: the student loan tribute.

Just call me Katniss (again).

Popular in the Community

Close

What's Hot