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On HoldJanuary 05, 2007 Working methodically down my ever-lengthening "to do" list, I came to "renew registration." Uhura Mazda's registration sticker expires at the end of the month. Piece of cake: I pulled license and Visa card out of my wallet and got me to the Registry website, found the right page, filled in all the blanks, pushed the button to complete the transaction -- and found myself staring at a mostly blank white page that said "Server Error" at the top. Wunnerful. Did my renewal get logged in or not? Should I wait up to three days for the promised e-mail confirmation or should I just start again? I phoned the Registry's toll-free number. After wading a couple of levels down the voicemail system, being told in the process that I could renew my registration online, I wound up in the holding tank. Against a background of sappy music a female voice assured me, "Your call is important to us. Thank you for your patience . . ." Patience? What patience? After an interval (probably calculated on the basis of psychological studies: How long will a caller wait before slamming down the receiver or throwing the phone out the window?) of sappy music, a male voice said, "We are experiencing heavy call volume and apologize for the delay." He confirmed that my call was important to "us" and thanked me for my patience. I opened Spider, my all-time favorite double-deck solitaire which I discovered last week was hiding in Morgana V, and started another game. The male voice alternated with the female voice at those measured intervals for about 15 minutes. At first I thought the female voice was getting genuinely distressed by the length of my wait: her emphasis on "is important to us" seemed more heartfelt with each repetition. Every time the male voice invoked "heavy call volume," however, I grew more certain that only one employee was actually taking calls; all the others were either rehashing the last Patriots game or talking about an earlier caller who went berserk on the phone. My Spider game showed just enough promise to keep going. My tea needed zapping but what if I got up and lost my place in limbo? The male voice, I began to suspect, belonged to a lobotomized former broadcast journalist, and the female voice to a Method Acting washout. Finally the male voice was cut off by a live person of the female persuasion. I explained my problem. She said she'd just got off the website and the error was probably with my computer. This call was not off to a good start. Maybe I was about to become the next berserk caller they told funny stories about. It got better, though. Live lady logged in my info. With luck my credit card won't get charged twice. I lost the game of Spider. On or about January 5, 2057, the last American who remembers getting through to a live person on the first try and having that person solve the problem will pass on, perhaps to a place where all business is transacted promptly, accurately, and by real people.
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