Foreshadow of Y2K?

In March 1992 a man living in Newton, near Boston,
received a bill for his as yet unused credit card
stating that he owed $0.00. He ignored it and threw
it away. In April he received another and threw that
one away, too. The following month the credit card
company sent him a very nasty note stating they were
going to cancel his card if he didn't send them
$0.00 by return of post. He called them, talked to
them, they said it was a computer error and told him
they'd take care of it.

The following month our hero decided that it was about
time that he tried out the troublesome credit card
figuring that if there were purchases on his account it
would put an end to his ridiculous predicament. However,
in the first store that he produced his credit card in
payment for his purchases, he found that his card had
been cancelled.

He called the credit card company who apologized for the
computer error once again and said that they would take
care of it. The next day he got a bill for $0.00 stating
that payment was now overdue. Assuming that having spoken
to the credit card company only the previous day, the
latest bill was yet another mistake. So he ignored it, and
trusted that the company would be as good as their word
and sort the problem out.

The next month he got a bill for $0.00 stating that he had
10 days to pay his account or the company would have to take
steps to recover the debt. Finally giving in he thought he
would play the company at their own game and mailed them a
check for $0.00. The computer duly processed his account and
returned a statement to the effect that he now owed the credit
card company nothing at all.

A week later, the man's bank called him asking him what he was
doing writing a check for $0.00. After a lengthy explanation
the bank replied that the $0.00 check had caused their check
processing software to fail.

The bank could not now process ANY checks from ANY of their
customers that day because the check for $0.00 was causing
the computer to crash. The following month the man received
a letter from the credit card company claiming that his check
had bounced and that he now owed them $0.00 and unless he
sent a check by return of post they would be taking steps to
recover the debt.

The man, who had been considering buying his wife a computer
for her birthday, bought her a typewriter instead.

Sent by Marina

My brother was driving down the road that leads to 
you "Country Estate", all twenty acres of it. He saw a young person 
wearing a tee shirt and jeans walking along the side of the road 
and, as is to be expected in the rural areas of a few years past, 
offered this person a lift. The kid got in the car. Now, this was a 
bright, sunshinny day and my brother got a good look at the kid he 
picked up. He said "You live down this way, son?" The kid looked at 
my 50-year-old brother and asked "What's the matter, pops? Forget 
what a girl looks like?"

    Burn Baby Burn - A Cigar Story

   ONLY IN THE U.S. LEGAL SYSTEM
   A Charlotte, North Carolina man, having purchased a case of rare, very
   expensive cigars, insured them against ... get this ...fire.
   Within a month, having smoked his entire stockpile of fabulous cigars,
   and having yet to make a single premium payment on the policy, the man
   filed a claim against the insurance company. In his claim, the man
   stated that he had lost the cigars in "a series of small fires."
   The insurance company refused to pay, citing the obvious reason that
   the man had consumed the cigars in a normal fashion. The man
   sued...and won!
   In delivering his ruling, the judge stated that since the man held a
   policy from the company in which it had warranted that the cigars were
   insurable, and also guaranteed that it would insure the cigars against
   fire, without defining what it considered to be "unacceptable fire,"
   it was obligated to compensate the insured for his loss.
   Rather than endure a lengthy and costly appeal process, the insurance
   company accepted the judge's ruling and paid the man $15,000 for the
   rare cigars he lost in "the fires." After the man cashed his check,
   however, the insurance company had him arrested ... on 24 counts of
   arson!
   With his own insurance claim and testimony from the previous case
   being used as evidence against him, the man was convicted of
   intentionally burning the rare cigars and sentenced to 24 consecutive
   one year terms!