The Haggler: Yielding My Time to a Comedian’s Grousing

A recurring theme of his show is the frustration of interacting with, well, just about everyone. But he’s especially skilled at sketching the shortcomings of all manner of commercial transactions. This time, the Haggler asked Mr. Carolla to opine, extemporaneously, on topics where he’d like to see some consumer-related changes in the coming year:

Restaurants

All of their cute stuff needs to go. A club sandwich needs to resemble a club sandwich, or I need to be notified. I was in Phoenix, sitting at the pool of a hip hotel with a friend, and I saw “club sandwich” on the menu. So we ordered two, but what came back was a Kaiser roll with some ham and some Swiss in it. Not the triangular cuts of bread with the bacon and the three layers.

So I said, “I ordered a club sandwich.”

The waiter said, “Oh, yeah, that’s how we do it.”

If you’re stupid enough to call that a club sandwich, you might want to tell me while I’m ordering, “Hey, I hope you’re not expecting a club sandwich.”

It’s the same with passion fruit iced tea, which has destroyed what is left of our culture in Southern California. You order iced tea in Los Angeles and you get something that tastes like somebody put potpourri in a gym sock and dipped it in warm water. I’m not kidding. When you say, “I wanted iced tea, regular iced tea,” they say, “That is our regular iced tea.”

If I went to your restaurant and said, “Give me a club sandwich and an iced tea,” and you brought me the Kaiser roll with the ham and the boiled potpourri, there’s no chance that I’d go: “This is exactly what I had in mind! You’re right. I know I said iced tea and I know I said club sandwich, but I wanted something completely different and you’ve hit it right on the head.”

I’m not into big government, but I want it to get involved with iced tea and club sandwiches.

Movie Ads

I have a fun game that readers can play at home. When an ad comes on for a comedy, especially one starring Adam Sandler or Kevin James, see if you can count to eight seconds before someone in that ad takes, like, a shovel to the head. There will be head trauma in the first eight seconds. It used to be groin trauma, but we’ve evolved.

At the movies, you watch, like, 10 or 11 trailers in a row. The good thing is that by the end, you’ve forgotten what movie you’ve come to see. Which makes it more exciting. It’s like having sex with your wife for the first time, 10 years into your marriage.

Credit Cards

First, I don’t know why the school systems are doing it, but they’re acting as if you’ll never see money your entire life. They’re so focused on cooking classes, ceramics classes, sewing classes, French, German, Spanish. Literally, I took agriculture, horticulture and five semesters of ceramics when I was in school. I never took one class in basic finance. Never learned how to handle a credit card. Never learned about compound interest.

And we tell the government, “Hey, you’ve got to regulate these credit card guys because they’re predatory.”

But the I.R.S. does the same thing. I owed the I.R.S. about $4,000 when I was 28, and they worked out a minimum payment, which for me was like $30 a month. I paid $30 a month for three years, and when I actually had made some money, and could settle up, I owed it $4,000. I was just paying interest and penalties. Didn’t touch the principal. The I.R.S., credit card companies and others need to be clear that sometimes, the minimum payment isn’t touching the principal. It’s as if you’re just paying protection money, so you won’t get a brick through the window.

Buying a Used Car

I’d buy a car that’s two years old. Buy it from the single, nonsmoker who put 17,000 miles on it. You can knock 25 percent off the retail price and it’s still under warranty. And if you want to know what the real price of a car is, go to eBay. A lot of people say, “The Kelley Blue Book says it should be between $12,000 and $15,000.” Just go to eBay and find the car you want. Whatever that thing sells for on eBay is the current market value of your car.

Some people will say, “Here’s what the dealer says it’s worth.” But I always see signs on those used-car lots that say, “We Pay the Most for Trade-Ins.” And underneath that it says, “Lowest Prices on Used Cars.” Uh, well, one or the other. You can’t pay the most for trade-ins and have the lowest prices. I’d like to find a dealership that says: “We really gouge you on the trade-in. But we have great deals on used cars.”

E-mail: haggler@nytimes.com. Keep it brief and family-friendly, and go easy on the caps-lock key. Letters may be edited for clarity and length.

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