(1) It was in March that I got the first of three tickets I received for running a red light at Fessenden Street at 39th (or is it 38th?). When I have tried to fight such a ticket (maybe three times over the past 50 years), I have always had watertight proof of innocence and lost, because the appeal process is stacked in favor of the police and against the ordinary citizen. So, why should I fight City Hall? I paid by $100 fine, and went on with my life.

In April, we took a trip to St. Louis and when I returned, I found an unexpected piece of mail from the DC Motor Vehicle Department. It was a statement telling me that they had reviewed my ticket (without my asking) and concluded that I had not failed to stop, and they were going to return my $100. They told me to be patient because it would take about 6 weeks.

Six weeks would have been about June 1. I put a little note on my calendar and, not surprisingly, June 1 came without my hearing anything more from the Department. I made a mental note to keep my eyes open, and if the check did not arrive within the next couple of weeks to follow up. I was not sure how to follow up, but I thought I would probably call the Mayor’s hot line; I had had pretty good luck with them before.

But time passed and I didn’t think about it. It just slipped my mind. But, lo and behold, when I picked up the mail today, I saw an envelope from the City Finance Office, and inside was a $100 check.

You know how they always say “Don’t spend it in one place?” I think we are going to spend it in one place.

(2) We are going out of town for a week on Sunday, and because we are newspaper Luddites and still get the Washington Post and New York Times delivered daily, we have to cancel the delivery for a week. Usually, this can be done with a brief phone call: you tell them your address and your name and maybe answer a security question (e.g., what color is your red Prius) and they say okay. This time, this is exactly what happened when I called the Post and spoke with their computer. When I called the Times, however, nothing seem to work. First, the computer asked me a totally unexpected question (unexpected because it had never asked me this before): what was our account number? I didn’t have an invoice with me and had no clue. The computer would not take “I don’t know” for an answer, and it wouldn’t let me speak with a person. It asked me what I wanted to do: I told it I wanted to pause my subscription for a week. It old me it could do that and asked me what I wanted to do. I could tell I was in a loop, so I picked another answer (I don’t remember what it was) and the computer got me confused and told me to hold on, and pretty soon it was obvious I was being sent to another computer.

This time the computer asked me when I wanted to start my pause and when I wanted to end my pause. I didn’t feel comfortable, because the computer had never asked me who I was or where I lived and I didn’t think my cellphone was connected to the account. I talked gibberish to the computer and that was enough for it to send me to a real person.

I told him what my concern was. He seemed to understand and was very apologetic. I told him that I now had my account number, and he liked that. He then asked me my address, which of course I told him, thinking that was a fair way to check that I was who I said I was. But he then asked me my name, which I wasn’t sure that he liked. He then asked me phone number. I gave him the cell phone number, and he asked me if I had any other. I gave him the land line number; he told me that was helpful, because for delivery accounts, they only went by land line numbers (I know that made no sense, but I let it pass). He then asked me for my email, which I gave him, and he asked me if I had any better email, and I gave him Edie’s.

At last he seemed satisfied, and he asked me when I wanted the delivery paused. I told him, and he said, okay, let me put you on hold a minute. Okay, I replied, and he went off and then came back on the line, and told me “Someone already called this in. The pause was already in the system.”

Now this had to be me. Couldn’t he have told me that before taking up about 20 minutes of my (and his) time with all of his questions? But I thanked him, and then told him that, the next time we went away, I did not want to go through all of this again. Could he tell me what information I needed – account number, what phone number, what email, etc.? I just wanted to make it easy on everyone. There was a pause. It was as if I could hear him smile. His response was “No, you have done everything just right.”

(3) While writing this post, I am watching the Nationals play the Rangers. Going into the 9th inning, it is Texas 5, Washington 0. I repeat what I have said before – the team management has ruined this season, taking a very exciting group of young players, disposing of three of them on trades that do not seem to be working out yet at all, demoralizing the fan base, and demoralizing the remaining players. Hard to say when they will really win me back.