Forget Kids - DCFS Can't Even Find Keys

Hardly a day goes by that I don't hear from some fed-up, angry,can't-take-it-anymore citizen about the maddening frustrations ofdealing with some government bureaucracy.

Not many of these all-too-true adventures, though, top thefarcical saga of the lost keys to the locked file cabinet at theIllinois Department of Children and Family Services, recounted thisweek by Diane Kirkpatrick.

Kirkpatrick owns and operates, has for 11 years, a large daycare center in suburban Oak Forest that requires license renewal byDCFS every two years.

So our story begins last June 10 as the DCFS representativeassigned to Kirkpatrick's case shows up for the required …