On being strangled by The Cable By GORDON ATCHESON IT'S TOUGH being stuck in the middle of a feud between two of Ann Arbor's corporate enterprises. It's left me winded, frustrated, and without a func- tional television in the midst of the Republicans' equiv- alent of the shoot-out at the O.K. Corral. The tale is that of the television in my apartment, which nowv features 23 channels of snow. It's cable- TV snow, by the way, for which I shell out $15 a month. But lo, the crystal clear images hit a mammoth blizzard last Friday, larger than any since the Donner party tried to cross the Rockies a hundred years ago - and got stock for the entire winter. Well, I called Ann Arbor Cablevision, Inc. - here after known as the party of the first part - to solicit the services of a repairman to fix what had somehow gone awry. He arrived and duly informed me the entire apart- ment building had been intentionally disconnected from the cable, and if I desired an explanation of this rather unusual state of affairs I should call the office. THAT PHONE CONVERSATION yielded the infor- mation that one of my fellow tenants had refused to pay the party of the first part for cable services rendered As a result, the party of the first part con- tacted the apartment's managers: McKinley Asso- ciates - here after known as the party of the second part. Party of the first part asked party of the second part for the right to enter the apartment of the de- linquent tenant and remove the magic box that makes the cable work. Upon which, for some season, party of the second part told party of the first part to ro-' tate on it. In retaliation, party of the first part turned off the cable - which unfortunately hooks into all the apart- ments and cannot be disconnected from any one with- out unhooking the rest. That's all she wrote, at least with regard to my picture. But party of the first part politely suggested I call party of the second part to voice my discontent with paying for a service I was not receiving. Somehow, I didn't figure that would move party of the second part too much since I had been paying them all year for what I considered substandard service. Ah, the joys of student living. A MIIlDDLE LEVEL, DROOG answered the phone for party of the second part and offered to call back the next day with further information about the prob- lem. Of course, that was pure fertilizer - I had just finished explaining to the droog what the difficulty was. When I asked for a more affirmative response, the droog (who was obviously well-trained) waited until I patsed for a breath and hastily said "goodbye" and hung tip, Now, that cut it. I called back and demanded an upper level pencil pusher. The only upper level pencil pusher in party of the second part's -office refused to take my call, ac- cording to another droog who answered my second query. Seething, -I spit out my name and number. And threatened to call back the next day and tie up their lines for another 15 minutes. Then, I leaned back in my chair. I exhaled. And asked myself where I could buy a snow shovel in the middle of August. Gordon Afcheson is a former . Daily co-editor-in chief. The Michigan Daily Edited and managed by Students at the University of Michigan Wednesday, August 18, 1976 News Phone: 764-0552 A Ford-Armstrong ticket? AS GERALD FORD sat listening to Senator Howard Baker of Tennessee deliver classic Republican doc- trine in pretty fair rhetorical fashion Monday night he may have thought: "That's the guy for me." If Ford is nominated, Baker would offend few and would be a stir- ring campaigner where Ford fails. If not Baker, some other vigorous young Republican will undoubtedly catch Ford's eye, provided he is neither too far left nor too far right. The "he" of that statement is unfortunate; Ford will almost certainly choose a male running mate, and will ignore the opportunity to catch the imaginations of many by naming Anne Armstrong, U. S. ambassador to Great Britain. While there seems little chance that Ford would ask a woman to run with him, there is no doubt that a man possessing Armstrong's position and reputation would figure strongly in Ford's considerations. The reception for Barbara Jordan at the Democratic convention was evidence that the nation is ready to accept a woman as president, and Ford could draw much of the campaign attention to himself by taking the initiative in this area. The move would be partially pragrmatic and par- tially symbolic. It would probably draw the votes of many women, while putting to an end forever the anti-woman stigma of big-time American politics. It could be the smartest move of the year. C>E.4-r14 Of ASALU"mAW- .r ' h v' 6 y .., , .' u,. ,_. . : What stays these couriers from the swift completion of their rounds? By BARBARA ZAHS TMAYBE IT ALL STARTED when I mailed a letter to Brighton without a zip code. Mr. Zip has prob- ably never forgiven me for the sin. Or maybe the tip we gave our mail carrier at Christmas - we all thought it was pretty generous - wasn't quite generous enough. But there is one thing of which I am certain: the United States Postal Service hates me. Every week I'm forced to piece together the re- mains of my Time in order to find out who's on the cover. When I'm lucky enough to get my copy at all, that is. There's a kind of Bermuda Triangle between my mailbox and the post office branches - letters snatch- ed from their routes, packages disappearing without a trace, leaving despairing senders and receivers without a clue. The original copy of my June phone bill is still float- ing in some unknown cosmos. I had to call the phone company to get a duplicate copy of the bill so my phone service wouldn't be disconnected; was there a conspiracy by the great communications empires? Now that I mention it, it occurs to me that my television has been on the blink lately, too. Much to my amazement, two letters actually man- aged to make their way to my mailbox last week. But there was a catch: the letters - properly ad- dressed - were mailed in June. The people at the post office could offer no explanation for the six week delay. In early July, 1 sent a letter to a friend in Arizona with whom I'd been corresponding regularly for sev- eral months. My friend had received at least ten let- ters from me; why, then, did this letter return to my mailbox stamped "Return to sender - addressee un- known"? I certainly knew who my friend was. I sent the letter again, but haven't heard from my friend since. Perhaps the post office spirited her away along with my letter to her. A FTER ALL PHIS, there is little doubt in my mind that the Post Office 'bears me a genuine grudge. Simple human error could not nossibly account for the incredibly poor service. T"" -""tered up the courage to complain a few times. "'s foiled in the act by constantly busy phone li- Either this is another branch of the conspiracy, planned by Bell Telephone, or the lines are plugged up by other irate patrons grip- ing about their own problems. Of course, I could mail in a complaint Barbara Zahs is a Daily assisAsn night editor.