A Sorry State of Affairs
By Gregory Jaynes
The New York Times
January 24, 2004

Memphis - The crowning blow, the straw that broke the camel's back, the ultimate bureaucratic insult, arrived in the post the other morning. Time Warner Cable was demanding $250 for its little black box, which I left in my house in Brooklyn, after I had sold it, last month.

The new owners of my old house had requested cable service. Time Warner said it could not grant the request until the previous subscriber at that address returned the cable box. After the interminable, obligatory may-I-have-a-real-person phone call, I offered what I thought an ingenious solution: give the new owners my box and switch the account to their names.

Silly me. Time Warner said it had to collect my box and install a box just like it for the new owners. I was responsible for returning my box, and I was 1,200 miles from New York City.

I capitulated and wrote Time Warner Cable a check.

The New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development sent me a letter just before I sold my house. The letter said I was in violation of eight building codes. All the violations were recorded before I even bought my house. Nevertheless, after two days in their good offices, I gave them a $300 money order (no personal checks accepted).

Then the city returned my money order. Only the current owner of the house, I was notified, may correct violations. Between the time I cleared my record and the time my clearance was recorded, the property had changed hands. Two days of cooling my heels. Evaporated. Square one.

I bought a dishwasher from Sears for my new house in Memphis. The man who installed it ran it through a cycle successfully and had me sign a document that said I was satisfied. Then he left and I loaded the dishwasher. It would not start.

I felt like a man who had bought a Ford that got him out of sight of the dealership, and no farther. When I called the man, he said he was only a contractor. I called Sears. Sears asked me if the dishwasher was plugged in, if the little green lights on the front panel blinked. I said, "I promise." Sears said, "Just a simple yes or no will do, sir."

I was in line with my toothpaste at Walgreens the other day. When I got to the register, with no one behind me, the cashier looked at me straight in the face and hollered, "Next!"

My health insurance coverage recently changed. By mistake I mailed my premium to my old insurance company. It mailed it back, saying someone else was in charge now. But the new insurance company would not take my check until I had cleared the decks with its predecessor. So I mailed the check to my old insurance company again and said please accept my money. It mailed it back to me with the same explanation as before.

I won't go on with this one because it gets ugly.

Some years ago I was fixing up an old house I had bought. I beseeched a local bank for a loan. The bank appraiser was due on Thursday. He did not make it. On a Friday, we tore out the ancient kitchen so we could put in a new one. On Monday, the appraiser showed up. We cannot make a loan on a house without a kitchen, he said. We consider this a shell. If you had been here when you said you would, I said, you would have seen a kitchen. He shrugged and walked away.

My 5-year-old son once asked me for $5 to pay for his kindergarten class photo. When I received the picture, my son was not in it. He had been absent the day the photo was taken. I did not know this. Todd, I said, you are not in the picture. Why? If I was not there, he said, how would I know I missed it?

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What put me in mind of all this nonsense was President Bush's State of the Union address.

Gregory Jaynes is a former correspondent and columnist for The Times.

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Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company