#1204 Monopoly Return

Monopoly is more than just a game with a little fat cat pilfering the community chest. It’s a real life thing that can lead to lots of busted pocketbooks and poor service, whether you pass go or not.
I was reminded the other day of how government intervention can actually be helpful, like years ago when it broke up most monopolies.
I went into our local cable outlet to turn in my Digital Cable TV Box. I wanted to cancel it.
So, in an ever-declining cascade of customer service, they first made it difficult for me to cancel by saying I wouldn’t get any credit on my bill till I physically returned the box. The same one they delivered to me when I got the service.
When I went into the building, I was made to wait in a “wait here” area where there was no line until one of the three clerks doing nothing behind the bullet-proof glass protected counter deigned to notice me. There were also steel bars across their teller openings.
It looked like the visiting room at a prison. Funny, banks, where they have actual money to steal, are more open.
The glass was also smoked so you had to bend down in a supplicating position to talk to the clerk. “Help ya,” she snapped.
I love be referred to as “Ya.”
“I need to turn in my cable box,” I said.
How she then managed to compact the glaring of her eyes into the sound of her voice is one of those enduring human mysteries, “Name?”
I told her. She grunted, manipulated her mouse, tapped her keyboard and took the cable box. She yanked the cord out, tossed it in a bin, opened a door and threw the cable box onto a steel rack.
I hope I don’t get charged for a broken cable box.
She printed out a receipt and handed it to me. “The total doesn’t have anything to do with what you owe,” she said.
Apparently, her computer doesn’t do math. It just prints numbers with dollar signs next to them making it look like a total I owe.
All I knew was I wanted to get out of that stifling, negative attitude-permeated place in a hurry.
So to me the receipt was like a “Get Out of Jail Free” card.
America, ya gotta love it.