In the Netherlands, we have Social Housing. This means the houses can have a maximum rent and are often partly funded by the government. Each region/city can have its own rules for applying for one, but the most common one is that those who wait the longest get one offered first.

I get a call from a lady in her mid-sixties who wants to apply for a house and has her account checked. Almost everything is in order, she only made a mistake on the date she moved into her current home by two weeks. This was corrected. She has not applied for a house yet; she just had her account checked per her request, and this happens all the time.

Caller: “My account was corrected and now I’m missing two weeks. Why?”

Me: “Well, when did you move into [current house]?”

Caller: “[Date].”

Me: “Then that’s the reason it moved to that date. That’s your correct registration date.”

Caller: “But now I’m missing two weeks!”

Me: “Yes, that’s true, but if we kept it like this and you did apply for a house, it would not only be corrected then, but you’d also lose the house you applied to and you’d have to apply again, due to wrong information.”

Caller: “But I don’t understand why you did that.”

Me: “Because you filled in the wrong date.”

Caller: “It’s because I’m divorced, isn’t it? I know a lot of people who get a lot more waiting years than me!”

Me: “Miss, I don’t know the other situations, but there’s probably a different reason. The rule is that you get a waiting time starting with your last known address. If they didn’t move—”

Caller: “They did move! I know they did!”

Me: “Another rule is that you have to keep your account information up to date. If you don’t fill in—”

Caller: “They didn’t do that, either! I bet it’s because I’m divorced. Why do you hate divorced women?”

Me: “Miss, nowhere in your registration is it mentioned that you are divorced. Neither is it on your submitted forms.”

Caller: “Of course not!”

Me: “So, that means we didn’t know you were divorced until you told me a few minutes ago.”

Caller: “I don’t believe you. You did this because I am divorced. I need to move! I’m living in this building and everything changed! There are only young people, and they all ignore me! They don’t even greet me!”

Me: “I understand, times—”

Caller: “And at 5:00 pm, I lock my door, because there are only men living here! That is very dangerous for a woman my age!”

Me: “Did someone threaten you?”

Caller: “No, they all ignore me! So, I need to move right away, and you guys are forcing me to stay put by taking away those two weeks! I should have forty years of waiting time, as well!”

Me: “But unfortunately, that’s not possible due to the rules. You got all the years we could legally get you.”

Caller: “You are doing this on purpose!”

Me: “How would that benefit us?”

Caller: “You are discriminating against divorced women! I’ll probably die all alone in this apartment! I’m going to hang up now because I am getting nowhere! I hope you’re happy now!”

Me: “I’m sorry I could not help you, miss. I wish you a pleasant day anyway.”

She hung up and I sent a note to our department that deals with people who want to move but can’t; they can help people who might need help (to prevent loneliness or who feel scared in their own home). No idea how they can help, but they are more experienced than I am.

Related:
Divorced From Reality, Part 6
Divorced From Reality, Part 5
Divorced From Reality, Part 4
Divorced From Reality, Part 3
Divorced From Reality, Part 2

I work for a 311 call center; we’re basically a non-emergency services and municipal information line. People call us for all kinds of city-related stuff.

An elderly lady is calling to complain.

Caller: “A car blocking my daughter’s parking space.”

She is a little all over the place with what she is saying and is starting to rant, and on top of that, she has an accent that makes it a bit harder to understand her, but this is a common thing people call about.

Me: “Is it a car blocking your driveway?”

Caller: “Yes.”

Me: “Is the car parked in the driveway itself, or is it on the street blocking the entrance?”

Caller: “No, it’s on the street blocking my front door.”

I’m confused but I still try to clarify.

Me: “Is it parked on the sidewalk outside your house?”

Caller: “No, it’s blocking my daughter’s car.”

Me: “So it’s double-parked?”

Caller: “No, it’s parked where she parks.”

After a few more rounds of questions just to be sure I completely understand her, it eventually turns out that she is calling because there is a car parked in front of her house where her daughter usually parks. The car isn’t in violation of any laws or anything, and this isn’t a reserved parking spot. This woman is just mad that someone has parked somewhere they are legally allowed to park.

Caller: “But it has [Out Of State] plates. Parking in this neighborhood isn’t good. My daughter will have to park around the corner and walk farther. This driver from [Out Of State] shouldn’t be able to park here.”

For what feels like the millionth time:

Me: “I understand that it’s frustrating, ma’am, but I can’t take a police report about a car legally parked on the street just because your daughter wants to park in front of the house. It doesn’t matter if it’s from out of state.”

Eventually, she hung, up grumbling about how we were useless. Because, you know, if we won’t or can’t accept a police request against someone who isn’t breaking the law, what good are we?

I have just moved to a small town from a larger city. There’s a bit of culture shock. I realize this when I call city hall.

Me: “I have something large I’d like to throw away. What are my options?”

Clerk: “The garbage collectors only take bulk items one week in April.”

Me: “That’s nine months away. I have to keep it until then?”

Clerk: “You can take it to the dump yourself.”

Me: “I can’t do that.”

Clerk: “Sure you can. Just toss it in your pickup and drive it out.”

Me: “I don’t have a pickup.”

Clerk: *Dead serious* “Are you being smart with me?”

One summer, a friend of mine is going to the Jersey shore one day with his family and is driving along a highway that New Jersey state police are well known to patrol heavily. He makes sure to do the speed limit. Sure enough, a state police cruiser does eventually end up behind him. My friend thinks nothing of it. After a mile with the state cop behind him, a sports car suddenly passes on the left, doing at least ninety. The state cop lights up, of course, and my friend pulls over to let the cruiser pass. To his shock, however, the cruiser pulls over behind him instead, and after a short discussion, the officer hands my friend a ticket for speeding.

My friend fights the ticket, but despite his dashcam footage proving he was doing the limit the whole time and the officer even admitting my friend was doing the speed limit, the court sides with the officer and forces my friend to pay the speeding fine. Naturally, he is frustrated at first, but he then decides that if the State of New Jersey is going to be petty, then so is he. When he writes the check to pay the fine and court costs, he writes it for exactly two cents more than the total amount of the fine.

A month later, my friend receives a check in the mail from the State of New Jersey… for two cents. He gleefully puts the check through the shredder, knowing that the state’s checkbooks are going to no longer be balanced — or at least further unbalanced since other drivers have undoubtedly overpaid the state before him. He has also started taking a different, less heavily-patrolled highway to the shore, and hasn’t gotten another ticket since. The state continues to send him two-cent checks, which continue to go right through my friend’s shredder until the state stops sending them about a year later.

This story is a family legend. My grandpa was a big stand-up guy; honesty was the best policy, and if you don’t like the truth, don’t ask him anything that you don’t want answered.

Every year, he did his taxes on time, got his tax return, and went about his day. One year, the IRS decided that computers were the future and began upgrading to electronic tax systems. Keep in mind that this happened somewhere in the early 1960s. Through the headaches of new technology, a blip occurred.

A big blip.

A MILLION-DOLLAR blip!

My grandfather stared at this one-million-dollar tax return check and then tried calling the IRS to report it.

I don’t know the details of the conversation, but the gist of the conversation was:

Grandpa: “I would like to report an error on my tax return. I believe a decimal has to have been misplaced somewhere, or your systems have made a mistake.”

IRS: “We are the IRS. We don’t make mistakes!”

Grandpa: “Well, you cut me a million-dollar check. I promise you that I did not make enough money this year to deserve that size tax return.”

IRS: “We do not make mistakes. If the system says your tax return is a million dollars, then your tax return is a million dollars.”

Grandpa: “You’re an idiot.” *Click*

Grandpa tucked that million dollars in a savings account and didn’t touch it all year, save to put a bit in once a month.

A year later, panic time! Or, well… panic at the IRS, anyway. Practically eating their words, hat in hand, with apologies to a smirking Grandpa, they admitted that they might have indeed made a mistake the previous year and needed the money back.

Perfectly calm, Grandpa wrote them that million-dollar check and told them, “I told that boy he was an idiot.”

A year’s worth of interest remained in Grandpa’s account from that million dollars. That, plus his eventual retirement, helped him build a house and raise his family before he passed away in the early 2000s. We wish we could get that kind of blip again because the interest nowadays would be a heck of a lot higher.