Complaint hotline would be all the rave
By Beth Teitell
Thursday, March 3, 2005

I won't bore you with the details of the bureaucratic nightmare that's consuming my life - although why not? I've worn out everyone else. Friends, co-workers, family members. When your mother screens your calls, you know you've crossed a line.

But, looking on the bright side, the time I've spent on hold (and redialing after being disconnected, and then explaining my plight to yet another clerk, only to be put on hold again and redisconnected) has given me an idea for a new service: a whine line.

Subscribe, and you can drone for as long as you like without having to issue meaningless vows to stop in a moment - "I promise this is the last time I'll go into this."

No problem would be too small for the whine line. In fact, the service would handle only painful minutiae.

If you've got real issues, talk to your therapist. But if the plumber said he'd come at 8 a.m. but didn't show until 5 p.m., after you'd rearranged your whole day, or you lost the receipt for an overpriced bag you bought and the store won't take it back, even though it's in the box and has its tags, and you have your credit card statement, it's time to call 1-800-POOR-MEE.

Although I probably shouldn't be giving my idea away before I land a book contract, I'm so excited that I've been running it by everyone I know, and I must tell you, it's getting a VERYenthusiastic response.

Perhaps too enthusiastic. Maybe everyone's just desperate to get me off their hands (or their ears, as the case may be).

"I love it!" said one of my friends, who also enjoys a good whine (her own, that is).

"There should be a sympathetic recording on the other end, as if someone is listening and empathizing.

"So I could go on and on about how hot my apartment is, but when I open all the windows and go to bed, the heat shuts down at 3 a.m., and I wake up freezing, and in the background I hear a nice voice saying, "Uh huh. Oh, no. That's awful. Uh huh."

Another woman said she'd want her mother's voice on the line. "My husband sure isn't listening," she said.

Hmm. I wasn't thinking of having automated listeners, a la Amtrak's Julie, but maybe that's the way to go. Staff the line with real people, and your tale of woe inevitably would remind them of THEIR tale of woe. And if you've got to listen to someone else in exchange for being listened to, what's the point?

That's what friends are for.

Beth Teitell's book, ``From Here to Maternity: The Education of a Rookie Mom,'' will be published at the end of March.