Jeff, as much as your Uncle Arthur loves and admires you, and please don't take it the wrong way, when I say to you "You do not know the depths of stupidity and disfunction of Ma Bell until you have toiled on her rolling decks for 30 years."

Let's be friends, and I promise not to start telling Mother stories that would make you do multiple facepalms. Here's just one, to entertain you this evening:

It falls into the "foreman is less educated that the the guys he supervises" department.

In the Seinfeld TV shows, they always show the facade of a NYC restaurant, and then cut to the interior. The inside is just a set, but the outside is actually Tom's Restaurant, a typical NYC Greek-owned diner. It's at West 112th Street and Broadway. The western omelets with a side of home-made steak fries were a delight. The repairmen from the West 130th Street garage, of whom I was one, would all drive our vans to that area every morning, and have breakfast. The local businesses complained that the phone company trucks were taking all the parking places, and blocking the bus stops and fire hydrants. Double-parked vans were also causing tsuris. Our foreman issued the following edict: "I don't want youse guys coagulatin' at that restaurant."

I gotta million of 'em.


Arthur P. Bloom
"30 years of faithful service...15 years on hold"