And I thought my in-laws were assholes. :eek: But at least they’ve managed to not kill anyone.
1300€ for fixing my windshield wipers??? :eek:
Snow the other day. Effing 20cm of wet snow. The snow brush still located at an unknown place in the garage, so I take the chance of driving without clearing the car’s roof. Bad move. Bad, bad move. After ten minutes’ driving, all the damned snow relocates from my car’s roof to my windshield. Right in front of an intersection. One thing to do: run the wipers. That’s the last thing they do before dying. Drives to the garage, carefully b/c of all the crud accumulating on my windshield. Nope, not a fuse. But I should consider myself lucky, 'cause it’s not the wiper motor, it’s some effing electronic thingie that’s fried. The wiper motor’d be even more expensive to fix. They tell me. But srsly, 1300€! Fuck!
I’ve been noticing that my know-it-all pedantic coworker cannot spell worth a damn when there is no auto-correct.
Ficks? It’s spelled Fix. How do you not know this?
It’s downright painful to read his writing sometimes.
What I originally posted at http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=15655905&postcount=98 :
A Romney win will make it abundantly clear to the rest of the world that 2008 was a fluke and the USA is really a polity dominated by white supremacist, trickle-down, imperialist whack-a-loons. That’s good, they need to prepare for the inevitable world war when we have to be wrestled down and decapitated like the rabid bear we are.
We end up with laws like this because as soon as a dog shows up in a restaurant or whatever, you are going to get some busybody yelling about germs, allergies or getting bitten. So the handicapped person has to be ready to prove their dog is actually of use and has a right to be there.
OTOH, we don’t have to disclose any medical information to anyone. They are allowed to ask if it’s a service dog (those vests can be sold to anyone) and what the dog does to help. In my case I’d say she retrieves stuff off of the floor, helps me get out of chairs, etc. That’s it. If anyone ever asks anything more, I’d just give them the hairy eyeball and tell them to go read their regs.
An aside about medically necessary things - I am allowed to board a plane using my cane, but it has to go into the overhead during the flight, since it could be used as a weapon. If I have to go potty, I have to use the backs of everyone’s seats :smack:
My husband seems to be going through some kind of existential crisis. Again. It happens every 6 months it seems. All of a sudden, he’ll ask me why we’re not rich and why we’re not more ambitious. Then he’ll talk for hours about how he wants to leave a legacy for our kids, wants to light a fire under them to be ambitious. I’ll recommend a few things (putting ideas to paper, creating a plan of some sort to do something, anything!), offer to help him achieve his goals, write the stuff down for him or simply offer encouragement but I’ve come to the conclusion that he really just wants to complain.
sigh This has been going on for about two weeks now. I may “accidentally” duct tape his mouth shut. Good grief, I love the man. But I’m reminded right now of why I once threatened to get him black socks, a tank top and a hose for his birthday.
One of my friends (who is fighting to keep his leg and life…Agent Orange is suspected because of all of the strange cangers…different rant, sorry), bought me a tactical fighting cane when I had that foot surgery and we took classes together. I am now trained to use the sharp edge on the handle to slash necks, and to use grip points so I can use it as a staff.
Of course, when I was using my cane, I wouldn’t have been able to stand up without it.
I’m not defending the TSA, I’m just saying that the very buff guy who was teaching us how to defend ourselves could have probably done a LOT of damage with his cane.
My rant: I have a dog tied to my desk. He was running around the main road and looking hopefully into cars, so I pulled over, opened my door and told him to jump in. Dogs are so much easier to catch than cats.
He is a nice, polite, well mannered elderly dog. He’s wearing a collar, but no tags. This just ticks me off…I want to get him home, dog wants to go home, his people probably want him to go home.
I’m saying so many bad words about this. Tags are cheap and easy to get. Pets escape. I’ll put up “found dog” posters and put a “found dog” ad in the paper and radio. Maybe I’ll find his people, I don’t think he went very far. If he’s really as loved as he seems, his people are probably pretty frantic with worry. All of this worry could have been fixed with a $2 ID tag.
Thanks, curlcoat. So, ISTM that my suggested law makes a heck of a lot more sense than the current one.
Why is it that the most expensive things must be purchased right at the time when I have the least money available?
My PC monitor is dying, so that’s $200 I have to drop on a new one sometime soon. Meanwhile my (former) workplace continues to not pay the considerably overdue invoices I have sent them.
Nitpick: The current thread title refers to Guy Fawkes Day, not The Fantasticks. But THANK YOU SO MUCH for putting that song back into my head AGAIN. 
Ah, I see someone else has already pointed out the difference. The sarky thank-you still stands. 
Shit. My daughter has pink eye. I now feel a need to disinfect EVERYTHING, daughter included.
Tell me about it. I am quite fucking certain that in an emergency there will be nobody there to retrieve my sticks for me, and I will be stuck. Though I did end up getting custom folding canadian crutches, they fold down and fit into one of those string bags they sell for grocery shopping,m and that fits under the seat in front of one so they don’t take them away.
I always try to get the seat across the passage from the door to the toilet. I know it is crappy because of the traffic and sounds but it saves the agitation of trying to gimp down the passage to the toilet.
I vote we call the next thread “December Mini Rants.”
There! Now I have bragging rights for that bit of originality…
I have something else to bitch about already. So, I’m watching Saturday morning cartoons with my kids and I stand up. My son looks at me and cheers, “Yay! I’m going to have a brother!” Goddammit, I’m not pregnant. I actually lost 15 pounds recently, but apparently none of it from my stomach. I had hit a plateau and apparently I need to break through it. Badly. Out of the mouths of babes and all.
I voted yesterday. All the election talk can now shut the fuck up in my vicinity, thanks.
:grrrrrrrrr:
I stood in line for over an hour to vote, but it was worth it. Because now they know not to beam campaign ads into my house. ::sigh:: I wish…
Speaking of voting: I hope “December Mini Rants” hangs in there til 12/1. I’m afraid some douchebrain’ll come up with a long, obscure (Or worse: cutesy-holiday-themed!) title.
Happy Christma-Hannu-Kwanzaa-kah Rants!
Can I just say that that conjured up completely the wrong image for me? “What? But doesn’t that make the whole bus stink? Why would she … oh.”
That’s another one of my driving peeves - people driving way, WAY too fast in parking lots. It’s not a freaking highway, people!
Me too, on both counts. Unfortunately with modern laws being as they are, the way to basically get away with hurting other people is to do it with your car.
I wouldn’t blame you at all if you did cut all ties with them.
My car brush lives in my car year round. Just sayin’. 
I don’t think that’s how it will go - I think the US is doing a good job of self-sabotage.
I had a great December mini-rant title thought up, but now I’ve forgotten it. Back to the drawing board.
How about, “Christmas suck and I hate it. December mini-rants.”?
This is (unsurprisingly) not my FIL’s first brush with the law. Unlike previous times, though, his parents aren’t here to keep their little boy out of serious trouble. I think he will face felony charges. I’d like to think that he might finally (at age 62) grow up and learn to face his problems, but I’m not holding my breath. Especially after his conversation with my husband last night: He was outraged (outraged!) that the state trooper would talk to him like he was just some common criminal. I mean, didn’t that officer know who he is?!
(And truly, this wreck could have happened to anyone, stone cold sober - the kids were jogging on the pavement, at dusk, on a rural road with a 55 mph speed limit, apparently wearing earbuds so they couldn’t hear oncoming traffic. But the fact remains that my FIL had no business driving in the condition he was in. Kids do stupid things, but a sober driver might have been able to swerve to miss them.)