As we settle into the new year, I’ve had a chance to get some rest. I got to head home to Ohio for Christmas, had a good time at Texas Live [exclamation point] on New Year’s Eve, and I’m currently burning some comp time for working New Year’s Day and taking the holiday for Martin Luther King Day.

Loyal Scaiaholics may recall previous posts in which I worked Martin Luther King Day to investigate why marching bands in Fort Worth play so much Funky Town during the parade.

Things have been going well for Ol’ Scaia.

“A little too well, if you ask me,” The Lord said to Habakkuk, as they looked down from a cloud [Note from the Catholic Diocese of Fort Worth: The Lord did not say that. He might hang out with Habakkuk sometimes, but he did not say that].

Ever so slowly, my credit rating had been recovering from the medical bills associated with a car crash I still don’t think actually happened. Getting a call from a debt collector while I’m trying to honor the life of Dr. Martin Luther the King could not have been less convenient.

She left a voicemail, explaining she was with So-and-So Associates and was attempting to collect a debt [So-and-So Associates has an “F” rating with the BBB, I would add].

I really was planning to stop at the parade for a bit. I had a whole list of things to do today, including, but not limited to, buying lampshades and pricing shrubbery [I am not an old man. This is an incredibly wild long weekend. The shrubs would probably wind up outside the house wearing the lampshades].

Instead, though, I called her back to figure out which anesthesiologist had sent a bill this time.

She started going on about missed payments by some guy, some guy not named Alan Scaia.

I stopped her and said, “I don’t know who that is, but that’s not me.”

We had a nice talk about how they use property records to find people to call.

But listen, So-and-So Associates, I bought this house several years ago. Also, my voicemail is an #adorbs recitation of the outgoing message at the beginning of the theme from Rockford Files [still a reference, debt collectors! I’ve got my finger on the pulse of pop culture].

“This is Alan Scaia,” the message begins. It plays the theme from Rockford at the end, but I most certainly do not introduce myself as “Whoever Smithington III, that guy who owes a bunch of money all over town.”

She said they’d find updated property records, blah blah blah and apologized for calling. But that really distracted me from “oil change,” which is another item I had listed to do today, in which I would go outside, look at my truck for a couple minutes, think about going to buy oil and a filter, think about what other maintenance I’ve been putting off, frowning and then going to that quick-lube place down the street.

I didn’t even get to hear, “Funky Town.”