This morning Qwest, my telephone company, had the gall to inform me that both my mother's maiden name AND the name of my childhood pet were invalid answers to my security question for my online account. Now, mind you, this was during the process where I write a security question and answer of my own choosing that only I would know the answer to.

Nowhere did they indicate WHY these items of my personal history were invalid. I suspect corporate America of putting research dollars into better and more efficient ways of pissing off customers and the public at large. How dare they say my mother's maiden name [5 letters] is invalid or that my dog's name could not have been [6-letter name]! Maybe they should just specify my security question and answer for me, since I obviously can't be trusted to do it correctly.

So first, I determined that Qwest has help for everything except its website. I then spent 10 minutes of my life that I will never get back screwing around with Qwest telephone customer service. They couldn't answer my question, but they did verify for the third time this week that I am not working, I have no cell phone, and that there is no other number at which I can be contacted and finally informed me that I should use the online chat function.

Now, I hate these "chat with a live person" options (while wondering when their "chat with the dead" will become available) because so many businesses appear to use insufficiently sophisticated Artificial Intelligence scripts instead of "live" people, figuring, I guess, that live customers won't be able to tell the difference. These "live chat" scripts, in my experience, try unsuccessfully to identify your problem by parsing your complaint looking for likely words. Then they generally give you the solution to some other problem while parroting back your original complaint. I find this unspeakably irritating. I prefer this to the alternative theory, that the person with whom I'm "chatting" is a living, breathing incompetent.

Anyway, after waiting in line (Why do they think it will mollify people waiting in line to hear that they can't talk to you because they are serving other customers? "There are 15 people who are more important than YOU!") they informed me that, although nowhere on the website do they actually say this, the answer to your security question (of your own choosing, mind you) must be 8 to 14 characters. It's like "bank security" now, they said.

I don't care what it's like. Telling me to choose a question and answer without the common courtesy to inform me that I must meet other conditions and parameters is yet another feature of modern life that enrages me and makes no sense to anyone other than a money-grubbing, common-sense-free, corporate spreadsheet jockey. Fie on the lot of them! Come the revolution, well, you know.

doctors

I have a longstanding love-hate relationship with the medical profession. Lately I have noticed that the first conversation I have with female doctors is usually about why I'm visiting today. The first conversation I have with male doctors is all about whether or not I'm an idiot, and what kind of idiot I am.

Why are Senate Democrats so easily pushed around? We are trying to replace a Bush-appointed Attorney General who resigned in disgrace after many episodes of using the office and public money to advance Republicans and harass Democrats. Now Bush is accusing Senators of taking too long to rubber stamp yet another of the President's good ol' buddy appointees. It's fruitless to ask where Bush gets his nerve from, but what I want to know is why Senators Feinstein and Schumer are not rejecting Mr. Bush's pettish fingerpointing and defending their reticence to confirm yet another tame Republican. It's easily answered. "Mr. President, we're taking a good long look at this appointee because so many of your appointees have been inept, inexperienced, crooked as a dog's hind leg, and/or stupid. None of these attributes are what we want in an Attorney General, and we're going to investigate this guy until we are satisfied that he is none of the above."

So many Democrats just roll over at the slightest hint that they might not be completely and absolutely fair, while the other party is running around like a bunch of rogue elephants, violating laws, spending public funds on private and partisan vendettas and generally enriching themselves at the public trough. C'mon folks, stand up for yourselves and us!