OPINION
Tuesday, August 14, 1984
Page 6
The Michigan Daily
A curious search for an apology
By Dell Deaton
with Dodd Mohr
Initially, I thought that changing a
designated meeting time was a matter
of a phone call: It might not be
possible, but there's no harm in asking.
I was very mistaken.
In late February of this year, I con-
tacted T & A Strip-T-Gram to hire a
"performer" for my friend Dodd's bir-
thday party in March. I was pleased by
my conversation with one of their
people. A few hours before the stripper,
was to arrive, however, I found that the
show would be better delayed, and
called the stripper's office. The woman
who answered (not my ,stripper) said
she would do her best and call me back.
Not only did she never call back, but
she disconnected her business phone (in
favor of a recorded message) so that I
could not contact her, and the stripper
didn't show up at either time. Later the
stripper called to ask for an alternative
time, but since the party was over,
Dodd told her we were no longer in-
terested. We then received an
irate phone call from a person
claiming to be her fiancee, who said in
rather "earthy" language that this'
matter had better be cleared up to his
satisfaction (luckily I was able to bluff
him into appeasement).
SUCH BEHAVIOR is inexcusable. Al-
though we could understand them get-
ting their wires crossed over the time
change, we wanted to let the owners
know exactly how their employees had
behaved. Little did we know that the
trouble was just beginning.
Contacting the owner(s) was dif-
ficult. First, we tried writing the ad-
dress given in the Yellow Pages. It tur-
ned out to be a vacant building on North
Fourth Avenue. When Dodd asked a T &
A operator for the address, she was
very evasive; she said their "new of-
fice" had yet to be built and hung up on
him. We tried to locate the place of
busiess through the Washtenaw County
Clerk. The Certificate of Assumed
Name, listing the type of business as
"Dance Entertainment," named two
owners, both with the same business
and home address; an apartment oc-
cupied by tenants who had no notion of
the business or the ownership. A cross
check of the ownership revealed listing
under International Escort, a "dating
service," with three addresses, in-
cluding the vacant building on North
Fourth Avenue, an apartment on Tap-
pan Street (again, no knowledge of
these businesses here), and a San Diego
address. Long distance information for
San Diego had no record of either
owner at the address.
AFTER TRYING, unsuccessfully, to
go through Yellow Pages assistance,
we were finally able to correspond with
the business via a post office box in Ann
Arbor. We wrote a respectful letter in-
forming the ownership of how we were
treated and requesting a written
apology.
The ownership, in response, denied
responsibility for the actions of her em-
ployee(s), attempted rationalizations,
stressed that "not many people" liked
her as a business women anyway (an
accomplishment?), and threatened
suit. She denied responsibility for the
irate call: She said the stripper
probably dialed the telephone and han-
ded it to her boyfriend.
The telephone company, which will
not act on "isolated" cases of
harrassment, suggested that we con-
tact the police. At the Ann Arbor police
station, the officer to whom I spoke
said, "You can threaten a person all
you want as long as you don't touch
them," but quickly added that this did
not apply to the president and vice
president. "You don't want to threaten
them." I had to concur and asked if this
rule of thumb extended further to
members of the Congress; he wasn't
sure.
DODD AND I decided to contact the
Ann Arbor Chamber of Commerce to
file a complaint against T & A Strip-T-
Gram and to contact the Washtenaw
County Clerk about the addresses.
While the clerk's office admitted to not
verifying addresses, they assured us
that they doubted that anyone would
give them false information. In the
mean time, we submitted the ap-
plicable complaint forms to the AACC.
The AACC sent copies to T & A Strip-T-
Gram, and the business elected not to
respond. The Chamber of Commerce
said the matter would be turned over to
mediation with the Washtenaw County
Consumer Services Center, which, in
turn, sent letters out to everyone in-
volved, telling us all to schedule appoin-
tments. Imagine our surprise when we
called and found that there was to be no
such meeting: The director of con-
sumer services has had a change of
heart about the matter-after the
correspondence had been sent out. But
she did say that she had "determined
that the consumer's request (for a full
written apology) is most
reasonable ..."
IT IS STRANGE that the police
department, the local regulatory com-
missions, the telephone company, et
al., have chosen to be so uncaring in the
administration of their duties. All we
can hope is that people will gain from
this an understanding of just how T & A
Strip-T-Gram feels about their clien-
tele.
Deaton and Mohr are University
undergraduates.
Vol. XCIV, No. 37-S
94 Years of Editorial Freedom
Managed and Edited by Students at
The University of Michigan
Editorials represent a majority opinion of the
Daily Editorial Board
The Reagan/Jensen
ticket
AFTER THE ever-amusing Paul Jensen
won the 53rd district primary, the
local Republican establishment has been in an
uproar. They appear to be embarrassed that
.Jensen-the odd, self-styled career politician
with a penchant for pro se lawsuits-will
represent their party in the race against
Democrat Perry Bullard in the fall. There's
even talk of the local party disassociating it-
self completely from Jensen.
While their dissatisfaction with Jensen is
understandable, we think their efforts could
be best directed elsewhere.
Take, for example, the nation's Republican
chief executive. On Saturday, Ronald Reagan
started joking around in front of a live mike.
The result was some comments that made
Paul Jensen sound like Thomas Jefferson.
"My fellow Americans," the president
joked. "I'm pleased to tell you I've just signed
legislation which outlaws Russia forever. The
bombing begins in five minutes."
And the Republicans think Paul Jensen is a
crank? Many a truth is told in jest, and
Reagan has a scary sense of humor.
In hours, the hoops were gone
By Scott Page
I first played ball on the
basketball court across from
East Quad three years ago during
my freshman orientation. I did
not set foot on that court again
until early this summer, when I
played with a group of orientees.
Throughout the summer, I
managed to sneak into quite a
few pick-up games on the East
Quad court. Even though the
rims were bent beyond reason,
the court received considerable
playing time from students and
merited continued existence on
the East University, not to men-
tion repairs.
Last week, a university con-
struction crew demolished the
courts in less than one day. The
manner in which they
systematically rolled up the
chain link fence and unbolted the
backboard supports led this not-
so-casual observer to believe that
either they were being paid
commission or they were
frightened by the possibility of an
attack by angry East Quad
residents. The latter reasoning
holds little weight because
everyone, including the people
who ordered the destruc-
tion/renovation, knows that East
Quad is empty, save the naive
orientees. Regardless, the crew
finished their task quickly and ef-
ficiently, hardly the norm for the
University's summer em-
ployees.
I hope that the new addition to
the business school can be built
as easily as the basketball court
was destroyed. More importan-
tly, however, I hope that the new
building benefits the students as
much as the facility it will
replace.
I do not mean to argue that
basketball courts are more im-
portant to the University than
buildings. They are not.
However, basketball courts are
valuable, and somehow in the
University's redirection, they
have not received the attention
they deserve.
The new additions to the
business school will easily exceed
$10 million. Maybe Dean
Whitaker could designate a small
portion of those funds to
repairing the existing outdoor
basketball courts on campus, or
even possible to building a new
court.
He won't, but he certainly
could.
Page, a University senior, is
president of the Michigan
Student Assembly.
T y
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