Santa hates us all: December mini-rants

The BBQ Pit
201

My previous car had an actual cigarette lighter in it. I don’t smoke (I’ve had asthma my whole life until the last few years) but I used it a couple of times as a fire starter over the 17 years I had that car.

The other cars I owned prior to that one also had actual cigarette lighters (push it in, wait a bit, pull it out and you have a hot glowing thing that can light a cigarette or burn anything else combustible).

My new car (as of a few years ago) doesn’t come with an actual cigarette lighter, just the port. It’s not a matter of semantics in this case. I think most new cars don’t have actual cigarette lighters anymore, that’s a relic of the past. They also don’t come with ash trays either, though I guess in theory you could use a cupholder in that way.

202

Combination mini-rant and mini-anti-rant. My dishwasher has been making a persistent spitting or clicking sound when running that sounded like maybe the pump was failing. Good news: I’m pretty sure it’s the upper sprayer arm, which is very loose and wobbles enough to occasionally hit the wire rack above it. I just spun it manually and it makes exactly that noise. Bad news: I see no way to tighten it. The bottom sprayer has a plastic bolt and is easily removable, but the upper one is more mysterious. I’ll have to take a closer look when I feel up to it.

203

At least yours is still on. Mine fell off several months ago. Fortunately, I mostly use it as a drain rack these days.

204

You can buy an ashtray that looks like a cup and fits in a cup holder. I wonder if anyone absent-mindedly got a mouthful of ashes…

205

OK. I’m living on campus at a university at the moment, despite being really old enough to know better. I’m in a small postgrad house rather than proper halls- it does have some plus sides, like a laundry service included in the rent. Leave the laundry bag in the hallway on the right day and the porter-fairies collect them, and the nice clean clothes are ready to collect a few days later.

Only problem is, it only runs during term time. Term time ended last week. It’s pretty much the international students who can’t leave the country and me still here. There is a self-service laundry attached to one of the halls which doesn’t have the service included in the rent.

Now I’ve used plenty of public washing machines before- you put money in, it washes, blah blah. Easy, right?

No. No money. You have to buy a card from the vending machine or download an app.

I am not getting a bloody app to do my washing, and phone reception is very shaky with my phone onsite- there’s a handwritten warning sign on the wall saying ‘make sure you have a strong phone signal before trying to use the app, or it doesn’t work’ so, card it is.

You pay £10 for it, which gives £8 credit.
One complete wash/dry is £4.10.

Bastards.

Of course, the vending machine won’t let you top the card up- oh no. To top up, you have to visit the most appallingly designed website I’ve seen in a long time, register the card, give them your name (even if it will allow you to be called ‘Bob Fakename’), which university you’re at, your email (which they then send an email before they let you finish registration), set a password (in case what? Someone else wants to put money on my card? No-one can steal anything from it, the bastards don’t give refunds!) and does its very best to wrangle a phone number as well.

I want to wash my damn socks. I’m already paying for that; I don’t want to be data mined as well in order to do this. I don’t think that’s an unreasonable thing to ask.

206

Jebus. What a major league pain in the ass. I wonder if there are any paid laundromats in your area that aren’t owned by the university? Although again, you should not have to pay for some service you already paid for. I told this story to my DH and he said this is what happens when there’s no competition, but I am not sure competition would help. I wish you were nearby (I’m in Texas USA, so not) so I could offer you the FREE use of my washer and dryer.

207

I love my Kindle, but they need to have a way to display book titles instead of book covers. I can’t tell what damn book I’m looking at with a tiny black and white thumbnail of the cover. If there’s some hidden toggle to activate this, I haven’t found it.

208

On mine you go ‘sort’ in the top right, then choose ‘list’ instead of ‘grid’.

209

OMG! Thank you!

210

I was driving home from work yesterday on the same back-roads I always drive. The road is wide enough for two cars (barely) but there are no lines painted. I usually see one or two other cars during the ten minutes I’m on this road.

I came around a bend, going 25 mph when a car came at me, entirely on my side of the road. The other car swerved hard, going off the road but missing my car. It was a close call.

I pulled off and went back to make sure the other driver was ok. A woman got out and began screaming at me, asking what the hell I was doing, etc. She eventually calmed down enough for me to find out that she had driven from Pittsburgh using her GPS and she assumed the road she was on was “one-way” because the road was only wide enough for one car. I assured her I drove the road every day and it was not “one-way”.

Her car had driven over something that tore up a tire, so she asked me if I could change her tire for her. I had dogs and parrot in my car and had plans after taking them home. I asked if she had AAA and she did, so I suggested she call them to change her tire.

211

I have that issue in my neighborhood. We are a development of houses with small lots close to each other. The houses near me all have a garage in the rear, rather than the front, so there are alleys going behind our houses so we can get to our driveways and garages.

There are no lines painted (alleys never do) but there’s plenty of room for 2 cars. Except when an idiot drives right down the middle, particularly when they’re going way too fast.

These people live here. They are my neighbors. They should know better. But they’re so fucking self-centered that they assume they are the only people in the world and can’t conceive of the possibility that there might be another vehicle sharing “their” road.

It’s amazing that in the 9 years I’ve lived here that I haven’t been in a head-on collision with one of these idiots. There have been many close calls though, at least a couple a year.

212

My granddaughter’s (my son’s daughter who I’ve yet to meet in person) xmas package arrived in Florida. He put it under their tree. When she asked who it was from, my son showed her my picture on his phone.

She was gobsmacked and yelled out, “SANTA!!!”.

213

Sometimes a person who seems ignorant enough to ignore the double yellow lines at high speed in a “25” is the same person who at 5 years old can mange to love/manage/show-off a box of puppies.

I guess all people can be assholes at times. After weddings. After giving birth.

214

I did almost all of my pre-Christmas grocery shopping yesterday but I had to go out again to a nearby grocery store for two essentials: the President’s Choice (PC) brand of frozen Yorkshire pudding, and toothpaste. Also picked up a bunch of incidentals, but those were the two essentials.

And how did I fare on the two essentials?

The Yorkshire puds: another shortage crisis. There was none. But, on looking closer, there was one lonely package deep at the bottom of the freezer, which no one wanted because the package appeared to be mangled. On closer inspection, it wasn’t really mangled, it just had a wad of packing tape stuck to it, which I pulled off. Looked fine, but this is what shopping during the pandemic has come down to! If there’s anything wrong with it, I have some supposedly authentic English Yorkshire puds, but they’ve been in the freezer more than a year and probably have frost & freezer burn.

The toothpaste: totally forgot about it! I guess I’ll have to use the spare toothpaste I keep on hand for my son’s visits. Goddammed if I’m going out again. I’m having rum and eggnog and then going back to bed!

215

Brilliant! I’m sure the toothpaste gives the pudding that candy cane taste, perfect for Christmas.

216

The Xmas supermarket supply chain crash/mass hoarding has now resulted in empty shelves where there used to be Saltine crackers and jumbo pasta shells.

I can understand seasonal Saltine depletion, but it’s hard to imagine that everyone in my part of Kentucky has decided to make stuffed shells for the holidays.

217

I’m very annoyed with Crate & Barrel. I’ve been looking for a lid that fits my big skillet, and finally found one on their website. I just got the package today, and instead of the lid, they sent me a white plate. So now they’re sold out of the lids, and the other ones I’ve found online cost at least twice as much. :pleading_face:

218

Our beloved Corgi is 13, has inoperable cancer and is suffering greatly. We are putting him down the Monday after Christmas. We want him to have the last gathering with the family who he adores and who adores him and then it’s good-bye. This year I lost my father, my stepfather and now my dog. I am so done with 2021. :cry:

219

I’m sorry. That’s heart-breaking. :frowning:

220

For the first time ever, a gift likely isn’t going to arrive, and I stupidly didn’t plan for it, thinking it was too far out. Plus the site had this specific note on when you could order to get items in time, and I stupidly took them at their word.

But that’s not quite what got me to post it here. I’d at least understand if the package was being tracked and there was some delay. There are things going wrong out there. But this is UPS, and they seem to just randomly decide not to bother tracking things. So I got no notifications or anything.

Yeah, I should have checked sooner, but things have been hectic. I got hit with another of those “way too tired to function” spells that I’ve been to the doctor for and not gotten a resolution. Right at the worst time of year to get that.

I thought maybe I could barely make it, and get everything done as planned. But no. And this particular gift was kinda important, as it’s a part of a theme of gifts. Yeah, the recipient will understand, but it just sucks, y’know?

Why the fuck didn’t I think to try and get a backup gift? Why didn’t I get worried earlier when I’d not heard from the tracking, back when I had time to maybe get a backup gift. Ugh.

Yeah, I know other people have bigger issues. That’s why I posted it here.