My mother used to talk about America, and the 98% and the 2%. We, of course, belonged to the former - the huge mass of nameless, faceless humanity who toil every day in obscurity and die with a one line obituary. The other 2%, of course, constitute the privileged wealthy and famous social elite. Oh sure, they get screwed once in a while. Look at Bill Gates. But they can afford it. I really can't pay another $500 a year to my auto insurance company. I will have to cut back on something else. Like food.

The great thing about living in America is that anyone - yes, anyone - given the right combination of luck, talent, timing and backing can make it to the top. And you don't even have to sleep with anyone any more to do it. Any one of us can, in theory, become a member of the vaunted 2% Club. Unfortunately, along the way, we are screwed by 100% of our fellow Americans. Well, maybe 99.99%. Surely, our friends, neighbors and relatives would never actually screw us. Would they?

Just take last week, for example. I called a well-known hotel in Annapolis to make reservations for my birthday weekend. They laughed. "We are booked up all summer." Then there was my local phone company's fixed price telephone jack installation that turned out to be an extra $50. "Well, we actually had to change the face plates on the wall." Then there was the major hardware chain who installed our new flooring. When the light fixture came crashing down on the floor from all their hammering, sprinkling glass shards into the dog's food bowl, they promised to replace it immediately. Do you want to guess? And then there was a major computer manufacturer, from whom I ordered my new system on May 4 for our digital video business. Promised for shipping on May 11, it has still not arrived. And, finally, a local painting contractor offered up a bid on painting our two small bedrooms white. Wanna take a shot at it? Would you believe $1500? "You do have a nail pop in the ceiling that has to be repaired."

Screwed in the U.S.A. I think all of us can relate to that well-distributed cartoon of some poor slob impaled with a giant wood screw through his torso. The caption reads: Work hard and be dilligent and you will always get your just reward."

I mean. Forget about it. Insurance companies. Airlines. Banks (especially large ones). Department stores. Car dealers. Lawyers. The IRS. Local government. Long lines. Rude employees. The frustrating phone calls. It never ends. It's a wonder Americans have any spirit left. I guess we are so used to being treated like scum that we have become enured to it. A few weeks ago I witnessed an airline flight attendant who insulted a physically challenged woman who complained that she had just dragged herself, in pain, all the way to the rear toilet, only to find that it was out of order. "Why couldn't you have told us it was not working," she pleaded? "I don't have time to deal with each passenger individually he snapped.

Is customer service really this dead? Is it time to say a requiem for the individual? Consider my daughter's experience yesterday in Baltimore. She had parked her car in a metered space on Calvert Street, dropping the requisite coins in the slot, on her way to a job interview. Coming out five minutes after expiration, her car was gone! Towed to the city lot. $150 fine, plus $100 storage fee! It is refreshing to know that just when you think you can't sink any lower, someone merges from under a rock and reconfirms your total uselessness.