Nick Jimenez

Sunday, February 4, 2001

Deregulation is wonderful, if we can survive it

Everybody wants choices these days. Nobody wants just vanilla anymore. They want strawberry, chocolate, and tutti-frutti, too. That's why there's Ben & Jerry. And that's why the lights are going out all over California.
   I was thinking about California and the comfort of no choices when the telephone repairman showed up at my house this week. Yep, a real telephone repairman with a leather tool belt and everything, just like when Ma Bell used to be the only game in town.
   There had been buzzing noises on my telephone lines for weeks and more crackling and snapping than a roomful of teen-age boys attacking bags of potato chips. Calls from across town sounded like they were being made on one of Alexander Graham Bell's first efforts.
   Back in the old days, back before choice, we knew what to do when the phone broke down: we called Ma Bell. Paternalistic, all encompassing, we-know-what's-best-for-you Ma Bell. And the phone man came.
   Then somebody decided that Ma Bell was up to no good. And we deregulated. We deregulated with a vengeance. We deregulated the airlines. We deregulated the railroads. We deregulated trucking. Now we have choice.
   Now try to get someone to work on your phone. Try to get a direct flight to anywhere other than Dallas or Houston (OK, there's Atlanta if you want to go there) from Corpus Christi International Airport. Once we actually could board a plane that went straight to another country. Now we fly direct to a traffic jam over DFW. And try to get your chemical shipment out of town on anything other than one railroad line.
   Don't get me wrong. I like a certain amount of choice. I like a choice of movies. I like to browse for hours in bookstores. Going through the multi-page menus at Chinese restaurants are my idea of a good time. But sometimes there is just more choice than a person can handle.
   Someday, it is said, we will have hundreds of television cable channels to choose from. Of what? one wants to ask. More "animal snuff" videos, more "Survival" idiocy, more islands of temptation? The sheer choice of cable channels has created the "itchy" remote finger. You know the person: he or she can't watch a program from start to finish without zipping through every channel constantly during any break. Maybe they're afraid they're missing something. Leave it alone already!
   I figure the insatiable desire for choice is what led to trouble in California. Let's deregulate electricity, someone said, and every household can choose their own power company. Somewhere something went wrong and now they're lighting candles.
   It's every man for himself in the world of choice. Trying to figure out the best deal on long-distance phone service or cellular phones requires either a doctorate in accounting or a well-placed brother-in-law. Seems like every night (right about dinnertime, too) someone else calls with a better deal. Who's to say?
   Of course, we do have the choice of purchasing our own telephone wire, our own phone, our own phone jacks, things Ma Bell would never allow us to do. But all I ever wanted was for the phone to work.
   The telephone repairman quickly spotted the trouble. "Look," he said, pulling out a wire from alongside the house, "something has been chewing on this." After the replacement of the offending wire and some adjustments elsewhere in the system of wire from pole to house, the phone line was clear again.
   It all made me nostalgic for the good old days of monopoly. Of course, I did have the choice of getting my own wire and doing my own repairs. Or I could have relaxed and flipped through the television channels. I made the right choice.
   (Nick Jimenez can be reached by phone at 886-3787 or by e-mail at jimenezn@caller.com. His column runs on Sunday.)
  
  

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