Not That You Asked (9780307822215) Read online

  I didn’t say so to my friend at the time but I thought she had a good point.

  Let’s Hear It for Silence

  They’ve finally gone too far. The American Civil Liberties Union, one of my favorite organizations in spite of President Bush, is defending the right of people to play musical instruments in New York City subway stations as a means of begging for money.

  Some of these young musicians are pretty good. You see them on street corners as well as in subway stations all over town. A friend has a son who walks up and down the lines of people waiting to get into popular movies on weekends, playing his violin. He has a basket attached to his chest for people to drop money in.

  Begging like this is the young man’s only source of income and his father and mother say he does quite well. Their attitude is strange. I don’t think they’re proud of him but they don’t try to hide it and they seem somewhat amused by it. It’s my personal opinion that their son ought to be spanked and put to bed without his supper—or his violin—even though he’s thirty years old. I don’t say that to them.

  Most of these street musicians are inoffensive but I don’t believe they have the law on their side and I can’t understand why the ACLU has come to their defense. What about the rest of us who like silence, ACLU? Where do our rights start? Why does my friend’s son have the right to dominate the sound and atmosphere of a movie line? What if I’m standing with someone I enjoy talking to? If he has the right to play on the street or in the subway, do I have the right to stand next to him with a siren and drown out his noise with a noise of my own?

  When one person’s freedom to do something infringes on another’s, the question of freedom gets into deep water.

  Another friend of mine had the best time of his life on a New York subway the other day. He was sitting there reading his paper, when three young punks got on the train with a radio blaring loud rock music. My friend was thinking about moving to another car because, in addition to not liking the noise, he didn’t like the looks of the three young men. At this point another passenger, wearing blue jeans and a cap pulled down over his eyes, asked the young men to turn off their radio.

  My friend didn’t want to be in on any confrontation about something as small as a loud radio, so he kept his nose buried in his paper, but his ears were tuned to the scene down the car. He half expected to be witness to a bloody incident.

  “Hey, man,” one of the young radio-players said, “why don’t you …” He uttered a comment that can’t be repeated.

  “I said, turn off the radio,” the man in blue jeans said firmly. The three youths started toward him. At this point the man whipped out his New York City police badge, revealing his pistol holster as he did so. At the next stop the undercover cop handcuffed the three together and took them off the train.

  Where would the ACLU stand on that?

  Several weeks ago I was lying in bed ready to go to sleep when I heard music wafting in the open window. It was loud, incessant and unusual for the neighborhood. I lay there getting angrier by the minute until I couldn’t stand it any longer. I got up, pulled pants on over my pajamas, put on a shirt and sneakers with no socks and headed for the sounds.

  As I approached the source of the commotion, a woman, dressed as hastily as I was, came walking toward me.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  “Oh, it’s a high school graduation party,” she sighed. “They have notices posted on the trees saying they’ll move inside at midnight.”

  I turned and headed for home. I wasn’t going to be a graduation party pooper. In a case like this, the only thing to do is surrender your freedom to have silence to a group of young people who, for one night, want to be free to have noise with their fun.

  Low Marks for High Flight

  I’ve had more comfortable flights in a B-17 bomber over Germany during World War II when we were getting shot at than I’ve had on some commercial airline trips recently. Deregulation is about as successful for the airlines as a kindergarten class would be for kids without a teacher. It’s a dismal failure. The airlines are going the way of our railroads.

  Anyone planning a vacation trip for pleasure is going to get off to a bad start because there is no longer anything pleasant about a commercial airline flight. You hold your breath until it’s over. People ought to stay home if they don’t have to go somewhere. Businessmen and -women should do their long-distance business by computer. Flight is torture.

  The same thing has happened to U.S. airlines that has happened to most American industry. The money-changers are in charge. The professionals, who used to get their satisfaction out of trying to make theirs the best airline in the business, are gone. Pilots who used to be proud to work for Pan Am, Eastern, Delta, TWA, American, United, are now bad-mouthing their own airlines, and for good reason.

  Ticket agents, flight attendants and pilots seem not only good but exceptionally good by any standard you use to judge employees. They aren’t the problem. Service has deteriorated because there aren’t enough of them.

  The women who do the dirty work on board the aircraft, the flight attendants, formerly “stewardesses,” are a remarkably capable, interesting, intelligent and attractive group of all-American women. They perform the service of waitress, nurse, bartender, psychiatrist, hat-check girl and cocktail-party conversationalist and still maintain their pleasant manner in the face of rude, dissatisfied, unruly passengers like me.

  There have been numerous instances of violence by passengers on board airlines and there are going to be more. You often read of a passenger who is arrested when the plane lands.

  Rage comes easily to people under the circumstances found on commercial airlines. Plane interiors have been redesigned so the cabins are incredibly crowded and uncomfortable. There are too many people jammed into too little space, often on a hot aircraft. The claustrophobia factor is high. You’re trapped in a confined space, bumper-to-bumper with several hundred strangers. Baggage service is so bad that too many people have brought too many bags on board and there’s no room left to store a necktie. If an airline cabin were a prison, it would be illegal.

  The food in flight is no longer fair. The thought of asking the attendants for anything beyond their routine is out of the question. They simply don’t have the time to do it. You’re lucky if they have the plate off your lap before you land.

  On a Delta “dinner flight” I took, cocktails weren’t served until after dinner … which is as appealing as having dessert for breakfast.

  First-class flight is prohibitively expensive for most people and I’m one of them. I have flown what they call “business” class several times. That’s expensive too and not nearly as good as the so-called tourist or economy class of ten years ago.

  The pilot always politely suggests you stay in your seat with your belt fastened, ostensibly “for your own safety,” but practically because they’ve jammed too many seats in the plane and the aisles are so narrow there’s no room to move around in the cabin. You’re lucky if you can get to the bathroom.

  If the mechanics are being pushed as hard as the ticket agents and the flight crews, there is no way mechanics can maintain those airplanes in good condition. Maintenance must be on the same level of quality as everything else. If that’s true, we’re in for trouble … by which I mean there are going to be lots more crashes in the next few years.

  Airlines, chronically behind schedule, ought to be ordered to list travel time instead of flight time. Their schedules should read from the time they tell you to be there, not from the time the flight is supposed to take off. What difference does it make that the flight is scheduled for five hours if it leaves an hour late and you have to be there two hours in advance of the scheduled departure? For practical purposes, your travel time is eight hours.

  On a recent American Airlines flight of about no miles that takes thirty-five minutes in the air, I paid $99 for a one-way ticket and was told to show up half an hour before flight time. I got there nine min
utes before flight time and the gate to the plane was closed.

  I complained to the people at the desk. They rapped on the window, and got the ground personnel to bring the stairs to the small commuter-type airplane back down.

  “What time do you have?” I asked the man who had closed the door.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t have a watch.”

  I suggest that American Airlines make the ownership of a watch mandatory for people in charge of closing doors on time.

  Don’t fly if you’re looking for a good time.

  On Becoming a Credit Risk

  It finally happened. I dreaded the day but I knew it would happen sooner or later. My credit card didn’t pass.

  The item I was buying was a tent costing $64.95. We’re replacing the old garage that used to be an icehouse, up in the country, and I had to empty it out. I was buying a tent as a temporary storage place. I didn’t have $64.95 cash with me so I took out my Chemical Bank Visa card. There were several people behind me in the cashier’s line. I hated to hold them up with a credit card, but I had no choice.

  The young woman at the cash register did the thing where they put your card in the little printing press and pull the handle to get a duplicate of it. She typed some number off my card into a device that looked like an adding machine and waited. Finally she looked up at me and said, “I’m sorry, sir. Your credit has been stopped.”

  I looked at the next person in line behind me and laughed nervously.

  “Boy, these banks,” I said, suggesting that it was just a bookkeeping mistake by the bank. A wonderful person like me would never have failed to pay a bill.

  An assistant manager came along.

  “Here, give me the card, I’ll call,” he said.

  He called some Visa main office, waited a minute, then turned and said, “I’m sorry, Mr. Rooney. You have an unpaid outstanding balance. You can’t charge anything.”

  By this time the people in line behind me were impatient.

  “There must be some mistake,” I said as I walked sheepishly out to my car without the tent. I could feel all the eyes in the store following me. They might as well have had my name up in neon lights with bells and sirens going off: ATTENTION. ATTENTION. ANDREW A. ROONEY DOESN’T PAY HIS BILLS!

  Driving home, I remembered a letter I’d recently received from the bank. I pay bills to individuals the day I get them, but I’m apt to leave institutional bills in a pile of undone things. Apparently I’d done that with my Visa bill.

  The late notice, which I found the next morning, said, “The amount overdue on your account is $5.00. Please see that payment is made within the next five days. Sincerely, Collection Department.” I doubted a collection department’s sincerity but I remembered getting the notice now.

  I realized I had to do something about this cloud hanging over my financial reputation so I set out to pay it quickly.

  For a year I’ve been paying my Visa bill by phone but I’d lost the number. I finally got the phone to ring at the Collection Department and was greeted by a recorded message.

  “Thank you for calling Chemical Bank,” it said. “All our agents are busy. Please stay on the line and your call will be answered by the first available agent.”

  Nine minutes of terrible music later, Mrs. Piro answered. Mrs. Piro had never heard of being able to pay by phone.

  “Let me give you my supervisor,” Mrs. Piro said.

  This time it was only six minutes of recorded music later before Mrs. Hobbs came on the line.

  Mrs. Hobbs did not think it was possible to pay my Visa bill by phone either, but because I’d been paying them that way for a year by transferring money out of my Chemical checking account into my Chemical Visa account, I knew she was wrong.

  “I’ll give you the number for Customer Service,” Mrs. Hobbs said. All agents were busy again but the music was livelier and, when Mrs. Manza finally answered, she agreed that it could be done by phone.

  I exonerated myself forthwith, but those people who stood in line behind me yesterday will never think of me as an honorable man again.

  And, if it rains, all the good junk in the garage will get wet because I don’t have it under a tent.

  Figuring Out Insurance-Company Figures

  One of the most frustrating jobs known to man is trying to get information out of an insurance company. Insurance companies are faced with so many people trying to cheat them that you have to be a little sympathetic to their efforts to protect themselves. But boy do they protect themselves! And let’s face it—insurance companies have us where they want us.

  Six weeks ago I had surgery to correct a hernia. Before undergoing surgery, I went to an internist, who gave me a very thorough examination.

  You don’t shop around trying to find the cheapest doctors when you’re having work done on a body you can’t turn in for a new one. Both the internist and the surgeon I used are the very best kind of representatives of the medical profession. They are not only medically expert but socially aware. It gives me a lot of confidence in both of them that they are each other’s doctors.

  The charge for the medical examination, including all the tests that went with it, was $314.

  I paid the doctor by check and sent in the Prudential Insurance Company forms for reimbursement. In two weeks Prudential sent me a check … for $11.20.

  “Your family deductible,” the form said, “is now satisfied.”

  Well, OK, but obviously Prudential was more satisfied than I was.

  The surgeon’s charge for the operation, a hernia with minor complications, was $1,550. It did not seem out of line for an outstanding surgeon in an expensive part of the country.

  I paid the surgeon, and this time the Prudential check came with a semi–form letter. It said:

  “Your group plan provides only for reimbursement of usual and prevailing fees.

  “In determining a usual and prevailing fee, we refer to statistical profiles of physicians’ charges for the same or similar services in the area.”

  The check from Prudential for the surgeon’s fee was for $840. They pay 80 percent of the figure they assign to the operation … $1,050.

  I decided to try to find out more about the billing. I talked to three people at Prudential, then to an administrator at the hospital, a Blue Shield executive, two people at the State Commission on Hospitals and Health Care and four doctors, not including either of mine.

  The doctors said $1,550 was a normal charge.

  The Prudential people were polite but evasive.

  In answer to my question “How do you determine ‘usual and prevailing,’ ” they hedged.

  “It depends; we have different ways.”

  “We divide the country into two hundred and fifty-two areas and do it that way.”

  The nice young man whose name was at the bottom of the letter finally said, “Gosh, I probably shouldn’t be talking to you about this at all.” He must have thought he’d given me some information, and that’s the last thing an insurance company wants one of its employees to do.

  When I complained to another about getting only $840 back on the $1,550 bill I paid, he said, “We update our ‘usual and prevailing’ rates every quarter. You probably just missed an update.”

  My employer provides the insurance coverage, so I spoke to the company expert and got the biggest surprise of all.

  Prudential, he said, doesn’t really insure me. My company pays the medical bills. All Prudential does is the book work for a fee. My employer “pays” Prudential about $58 a month for each employee, but it’s only a bookkeeping figure. Actually, he said, my employer deposits that amount in a bank account out of which medical costs are paid. It must be a common practice but I’d never heard of it and was surprised to find my company in business with an insurance company. Obviously my company doesn’t mind when Prudential keeps the costs down.

  The whole episode wasn’t a total loss. I got my hernia fixed and I feel a lot better. Even though I never
found out how the insurance company decided I’d only get back half what I’d paid out, I learned something.

  That’s about as good as you can expect to do.

  Driving Still Drives Me Crazy

  Last weekend I was making my 150-mile drive north from New York City when a nut in an old red Camaro came careening through the traffic behind me. He must have been doing ninety.

  As he came nearer, I pulled closer to the truck in front of me, thinking it would keep the Camaro from cutting in. It didn’t and the driver made a dangerous move as he veered into the narrow gap between me and the truck, forcing me to hit my brakes. He immediately cut to the inside of the truck, passed that and flew on.

  I was still simmering mad four miles down the road when I saw the flashing red lights of a cop car pulled over to the side of the road. He’d caught the smart alec in the red Camaro! It is the kind of event that makes it impossible not to take pleasure from someone else’s misfortune. I was delighted.

  There was time enough for me to slow down and room enough for me to pull up next to the police car, where the officer was sitting, writing a ticket. I rolled down my window and, as the surprised officer looked up, I yelled, “I hope he loses his license!”

  I pulled back on the highway and drove off, hoping I never meet the driver of the red Camaro in a dark alley.

  There has been a recent rash of shootings on California highways and several times a year you read the story of an argument between drivers in a minor accident that leads to a fight or a shooting.

  If you’re a driver, you can understand how it happens. My angry reaction to the driver of the Camaro was a symptom of the same disease that leads to shootings. In the course of any trip you take, long or short, some other driver does something you think is wrong. If you’re an aggressive driver, you’re angry. Go get ’em, cowboy! You have this weapon in your hands, your car, and your tendency is to use it.