YOUR GOVERNMENT AT SLEEP

It all started last evening when I sat down after dinner to watch a little TV in my den. The night was frigid and everything was toasty warm in the house. My stomach was satisfied, and TLW (The Little Woman) was happily yakking away with her big sister on the phone in the kitchen. All of a sudden, caller alert acts up and she cuts into her call to take the incoming call. I hold my breath, because #2 Son is out. Sure enough it is #2 Son calling. The muttering of a low conversation way over in the kitchen begins, as TLW sways this way and that and finally sets her eyes on me. The words I hate the most come out: “Well, your Father will have to come and get you, I have to leave soon.” Upsetting that it is that the kid is out there like that for the first time, and upsetting as it is for me to deal with it, I have to go.

A cringe goes through my body, I know I now have to get up from my pleasurable existence and get my son. “Where is he?” I ask, and am told the he is on some busy road that I am unfamiliar with, in the midst of a fender bender. After several attempts at describing the location, and how to get there, I want to go to bed, not go find #2 Son. “You will have to help him, get the insurance cards etc. for him, blah, blah and don’t forget blah. Fortunately #2 Son was not hurt.

I put on my coat and step out into the cold, the wind attacking my legs and crawling down the back of my neck, a great feeling when it is 18 degrees out with a wind-chill factor of minus umpteen degrees. I claim him, make arrangements for a tow truck and we go home.

This morning TLW tells me to call the tow truck company to arrange for them to transfer the car to the recommended auto-body repair shop. I call, the owner asks me if he could keep the car to fix it and it will be ok with the insurance company. I say: “No”, because I don’t want any complications with the insurance company. He says: “Ok, but it will cost you $250.52 for me to tow the car, that includes storage for two days and the towing plus handling and taxes. Plus I want a check from you, and the insurance company can reimburse you for the costs.”

I call my insurance company they say they will take care of it. Another call later from the insurance company tells me that we will have a three-way conference call with the new auto-body repair shop where I will authorize them to pick up the car from the towers and work on the vehicle. Five minutes later, the Auto-body shop calls and says the towers will not release the car without written authorization! Can I come down to sign a piece of paper allowing them to pickup the car? I tell them I don’t have a car, (#2 Son has borrowed it for work) or fax machine.

My insurance company shows up at the door with the authorization form for me to sign, I sigh and sign where indicated.

I get angry, and want to file a complaint against the tow company, I call the County, they refer me to the town, who refers me to the county, which makes me think maybe I should just move away and no one can find me. I say: “I called the county, they referred me to you.” “Oh!” goes the lady on the other end. “How about the State or the department of Motor Vehicles?” I say “How about the Better Business Bureau?” “Yeah, even that is good!”

Somewhere in this world, maybe not in this country is an alert, competent government employee, who is awake and somehow helping someone lodge a complaint?

You can sleep soundly tonight, your government is.