I thought I would save time by arranging for delivery suspension for my newspaper by using the Times online service. Here is how this played out:

1) I had to create a new account using a cryptic account number and password emailed to me two months ago by a person I had to contact. This person's email address is at "pcfcorp.com."

2) In the process of creating the account, coming up with one secret question and answer (e.g. "what street did you grow up on") was not enough. You had to have three.

3) I tried arranging for two delivery suspensions since I know my next two vacations. This request was rejected because my account was "inactive." (This is plainly false, as I both logged in and received the paper today.)

4) I tried sending feedback to the site and requesting delivery suspension that way, but this message was rejected because of "invalid" characters in my message. I have no idea what those were. I tried removing all the quotes, but some characters were still "invalid." (Maybe it was the letter "e.")

5) 1-800-NY-TIMES, at a much higher cost to the company. Good business model.