A mouse ran across my living room floor yesterday.

Now while I am not afraid of mice, their metaphorical symbolism horrifies me. That of uncleanliness and exposed food, neither of which are representative of my household. So the sight of this mouse, who by the way seemed unperturbed by my presence, had to be representative of something else.

But what?

I immediately called the extermination company that regularly treats my house and grounds (and which also regularly charges me exorbitant amounts of money for said treatments). It is important to note that my former small personal extermination company, a company I liked and which always sent the same nice young man over who pet my dog and knew my sons’ names by heart, was bought out by a bigger company.

Now instead of getting cute little yellow cards that say, “Hi Mary, we’ll be out on the fifth for your Powderpost Beetle Treatment!” I simply get a bill that says, “Yeah, Mrs. Oves, we were there, but you weren’t. Of course we did the treatment. You’re just going to have to trust us that we were there, since there’s no proof. That’ll be $500.00.”

Hmmph.

So now I have this impersonal company sending me huge bills for treatments I have neither been informed of nor have seen completed with my own eyes.

And I still have rodents crawling across my floor.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how a woman my age becomes a “Karen.” Hand to God, I could feel Karen’s essence flowing through me during that phone call. I let the operator have it. I feel some remorse but not much. Here’s a sample:

I have lived in this house for 25 years, and I haven’t had a mouse since we have moved in. I get regular treatments and I pay my bills on time, and it seems ironic that ever since you bought out that smaller company, service has been less than efficient. From now on, if my house is getting treated, I want to see the worker with my own eyes, or I’m not paying the bill. And tell your CEO from me that if he can’t run his company efficiently, he shouldn’t be taking on more business. I am so disappointed. And if any crickets get into my house this fall, there will be hell to pay.

I am deathly deathly deathly afraid of crickets. If I hear a cricket chirp in my walls, my blood freezes in my veins. I’m not joking. I once wrote a blog about it, so it’s somewhere in my archives. It is one of my only irrational fears, so I depend on my exterminators to spray whatever they want outside my house to deter these prehistoric black hellions from entering my domicile.

Women turn into “Karens” because of injustice. Ineptitude. Laziness. Unfairness. It has been a week of Karen-ing for me. Here are some of my phone call rants:

A strange late charge on a credit card payment that wasn’t late:

“What is your name again? Betsy? Listen Betsy, you know and I know that this credit card payment was not late. You’re just mad because I paid it in full and you’re not getting the interest from me. You have two choices: you can take that late fee off, or I’m cutting up your store credit card. What’s it gonna be?”

The electric company’s refusal to discuss my electric bill because even after four years of failed attempts, I have still not been able to get them to change the account into my name rather than my late husband’s:

“I understand that you can’t talk to me about the bill because I am not the account holder. You’ve been telling me that for four years. But unless you have a Ouija board and some pretty strong-smelling salts, you’re not going to be able to talk to the account holder. How about this? I just won’t pay it (pause while customer care assistant speaks). OHHHH, I see, so I’m allowed to PAY the bill, but I’m not allowed to TALK to you about the bill. How fiscally convenient for you. Listen, you have the proper documents, I’ve done what you’ve asked, are you going to switch it over by tomorrow, or should I get my lawyer involved?”

Hidden fees on the family phone bill:

“I’m not paying that, so I guess I’ll just switch to flip phones. Put me through to the person who handles that. Oh, you’re going to take that fee off? How nice of you.”

It went on and on all week. Comcast tried to overbill me, medical insurance tried to not cover my son’s Urgent care visit, even DIRECTV tried to sneak an NFL Sunday ticket package onto my bill. Over and over and over, I had to conjure Karen:

I already paid this, but nice try.

I’m fully covered, but nice try.

No one watches that much football here anymore. TAKE IT THE HELL OFF MY BILL. Oh, and nice try.

I mean, what choice do I have? What choice does any woman have, when faced with people or companies that treat us like dummies? What would anyone prefer I do? Take it up the yin-yang? Pay inflated and unnecessary bills? Agree to services I don’t want?

Uh-uh.

Say what you want about being a Karen, but she helped me win every single one of those battles. I am 7-0 for the week.

But I’m never getting that haircut.