Life in the big city at the end of the 20th century can be can be damned annoying at times, and then there are the moments when it's beyond annoying, indeed almost beyond belief. Here's what's been ticking me off lately -- perhaps you can relate:
Note: All opinions expressed here are completely biased and intended to be amusingly garrulous, not bile-spewingly angry. I recommend having a few beer before reading them :-)
Perhaps they meant DRY water?
And I thought soggy cereal was bad ...
What the hell happened to my shiny new millennium?
I don't get paid enough to bank here
So this is middle age?
Thanks, and have a nice day WITHOUT YOUR VISA CARD!
Why Governments Love Crime
Perhaps they meant DRY water?
I recaulked our bathtub last month. It was one of the many chores I'd been meaning to get around to for years. Foolishly, when I selected the caulking product to use, I took the advice of the brainless home inspector who originally inspected our condo when we bought it five years ago.
Frankly, I should have known better. This was, after all, the same home inspector who said the garberator looked fine (it's body disintegrated a month after we moved in, and the plumber said, "yeah all those metal ones did that. Didn't you get your place inspected?") The same home inspector who spent 20 minutes running around with a circuit tester, plugging into our wall sockets and said "electrical system looks good." (We spent two months without power in two of the kitchen wall sockets until I traced that to a faulty circuit breaker.) The same home inspector who said the roof looked good (we had a special levy to replace it two years later).
Anyway, even before we bought the place, the bathtub caulking looked bad. The home inspector said "you'll need to fix that. Don't use silicone, use the DAP Tub and Tile latex caulk." Okay, so I tracked the stuff down, and that's what I used. It shows a pictogram of a shower on it, and says, "waterproof. For tubs, shower enclosures, and tiles."
I followed all the instructions. It certainly was easy to work with. I let it dry for 48 hours (the instructions said 36 minimum). The results looked really nice. But imagine my surprise and horror when, on the second day, the WHOLE CRAPPY MESS WASHED RIGHT OFF!
So lucky me, I had to go back to the hardware store (where this time I got SILICONE SEAL) and re-do the whole job. The moral? If your home inspector is an idiot, don't take his recommendation. And watch out for products made in Minneapolis. They've got some awful funny water there.
And I thought soggy cereal was bad ...
After our storage locker was burglarized in September, I spent several weekends installing chains, carriage bolts, extra planking, and a big kryptonite u-bolt bicycle lock to provide some measure of increased security. It's not quite Fort Knox, but a thief would have to do a fair amount of destruction to get in this time. I guess you could call it Fort Box, 'cause that's mostly what's in there - boxes full of stuff, and spare IKEA furniture.
Anyway, after all that effort, you might hope that all our old 45 rpm records and spare crockery were safe. NOT!
See, all the chains and u-bolts in the world are useless against what attacked our locker this month. Water. Hundreds of gallons of the stuff, from a burst pipe in a second floor suite above the locker area. Our locker wasn't right above the leak, so we were spared the raining cascade, but we are in the lowest corner of the slab, so we bore the brunt of the rising waters.
The damage was limited, because Jen was home and the building manager called her fairly quickly, so she was able to clear things out and start them drying. But, apart from the fact it made a lot of our cardboard boxes soggy, and took several hours to empty, dry, and re-populate the locker, the whole event reminded me about one of my pet peeves. PARTICLE BOARD!
Whose idea was this stuff? The lower edges of a whole bunch of the stored furniture got damp, and even with quick action, some of them were already swelling and bubbling the veneer.
I buy particle board products because sometimes they're only inexpensive option, but I hate the stuff. It's astoundingly heavy. It breaks if you put too much weight on it. It crumbles into wreckage if you bump a corner while moving. And it sops up water like a sponge and then turns into mush. It's like making furniture out of Weetabix biscuits (only it weighs more and doesn't taste as good when you chew on it).
The thing that really amazes me is that the construction industry insists on using particle board for kitchen and bathroom countertops. "Hey, here's a room that's constantly getting sloshed with water! Let's build it using Weetabix!!" When I replaced our kitchen counters three years ago, I had little choice but to install standard arborite-veneered particle board counters (hey, marble was out of our budget). Now, one corner of the main counter already has a slight warp in it because (surprise!) some water went down the edge.
I realize that particle board uses scrap wood products that might otherwise be wasted, and in that sense it's a technological advance. But it makes me wonder what brilliant new product technolgy is going to come up with next. Raincoats made from recycled tissue paper? You know, we might be better off naked.
What the hell happened to my shiny new millennium?
It has been dawning on me, for a few years now, that I've been taken for a ride. But somehow, with the ringing in of the new millennium, the harsh reality of just how badly I've been misled has really hit home.
We're all products of our times. My generation grew up hearing promises, and being shown visions, of a shiny new world in which we'd all own personal robots and work 20 hour weeks. Our challenge, we were led to believe, would be to cultivate enough leisure interests to keep us occupied.
It seemed believeable too. Humankind had just landed on the moon. We'd erased most diseases with the wonders of penicillin. Computers and machines would do most of the work, and we'd be the leisure generation, living in a world made perfect by technology. Hey, count me in!
Then 2000 came along and I realized, wait a minute, I'd been gyped! Oh, we've got some pretty nifty toys now. But no one has the time to play with them anymore. Our cars look pretty swoopy, but they still pollute the environment (and what's with the paint flaking off all the North American models?) Instead of the breadwinner cutting back to 20 hours a week to support a family, it now takes two people 80 hours of work each week to support the average family. Penicillin got overused and then AIDS came along. Hell, we can't even make houses that don't leak anymore. This is progress?
But I got to thinking about it, and I figured, "Hey, we've made some progress with technology, we just haven't profited from the results." So I started wondering, "Well, who has profited?" Bill Gates, that's who! The way I see it, he's been fleecing us of the fruits of our technology. He's got enough money to give everyone that personal robot we were all promised. So I say let's all turn up on Bill's doorstep and demand "Give us our blinking robot, or else!!" Unless, of course, he is the robot ...
I don't get paid enough to bank here
I have a savings account with a particular bank named for a large, French-speaking Canadian city. I've had the account for a very long time, but I'm starting to wonder why I keep it. It must be for the entertainment value.
They recently came up with a marketing strategy for their new "in-store bank" that was sublime in its brilliance. It worked like this: Pay your customers ten bucks to come into your new cubicle-bank, and when they get there piss them right off!
See, I got the ten dollar offer, so like a multitude of other Kitsilano/Fairview residents I made sure to stop by the cubicle-bank the next time I was at Safeway. It was two-thirty in the afternoon. The cubicle was closed. A handwritten sign said "Gone to lunch." I asked the Safeway customer service rep when the in-cubicle banker left for lunch. "About three hours ago," said the Safeway rep, "and about fifty people have stopped by trying to cash in their certificates." Ooooooo, not a good start.
I got on with my shopping, and eventually was rewarded with the sight of the cubicle banker returning. But someone got there before me, and as I walked up, the banker pulled the translucent cubicle door shut with not so much as a how-do-you-do. "This is a fine way to treat customers," I thought, "shut the door in their face and make 'em stand and wait." And wait. And wait.
The problem with waiting, is that the longer you stand there, the more time you've got invested in the transaction, so the more sense it makes to wait just a little longer. But you sure can get ticked off in those last few minutes, feeling trapped by your own time investment. By the time the cubicle door opened, I was in a rare mood.
But I pulled myself together, and sat down as cheery as you could expect from someone who was imagining taking a chainsaw to the wood panelling. I pulled out my ten dollar gift certificate, and also a check that I wanted to deposit. "Oh, I can process your certificate," the cube-banker said, "but you'll need to deposit the check in the ATM." "What the hell is this?" I thought. "What kind of banker can't process a check?"
Through a great effort of will, I avoided venting my frustration on the hapless cube-dwelling banker, and instead made a pleasant exit and deposited my check, as directed, in the ATM. But what a marketing concept, I thought. "Here's ten bucks if you'll stay away from our cubicle." Dilbert would be proud.
So this is middle age?
I was sitting at a traffic light the other day and, as I usually do when waiting at lights, people watching. In the left-turn bay next to me was a rather fetching young woman, driving an incredibly ratty, rusty, and worn-out looking Hyundai Pony. The driver's perfect complexion and shiny hair were only emphasized by the contrasting rust-pocks and dull paint of the Hyundai.
Then, in the curb lane on my right, a spanking-new white Cadillac Catera pulled up, paint all shiny and glistening, alloy wheels spotless and sexy-looking. And as I glanced at the driver, I realized she too was a study in contrasts, as decrepit looking as the Caddy was new.
I pondered this for a moment, thinking about how when we are young and beautiful we can only afford beaters, and how by the time we can afford really nice cars, we ourselves can be well past our prime. Then a horrible realization began to dawn on me ... I pulled the mirror over so I could see myself, and then I looked at my car, reflected nicely in the shiny windows of the Caddy. The horrible truth? My car had the edge. So this is middle age, I thought, when your car looks better than you.
I figure there were only two possible solutions: make the car uglier or improve myself. Now if I was single I guess I could have broadsided the Hyundai, which if the movies are right would have solved all my problems (woman jumps out, realizes I'm a pretty good-looking fella compared to my dented-up BMW, throws herself at me). But I'm not (single, that is) and anyway, I sorta like my car with all straight panels. The way I saw it, there was only one solution - so that's how I ended up in the orthodontist's chair, with the good doctor wielding a disc grinder and a pair of pliers. But when the braces come off next year I'm gonna be able to drive a brand-new Porsche and people will look at me and think "man, that Porsche needs waxing or something".
Thanks, and have a nice day WITHOUT YOUR VISA CARD!
I was at Starbucks a while back, so you've got to know that I needed a coffee. Yeah, I was tired and half asleep. Now I figure I'm dealing with professionals at Starbucks, so I told them what beans I wanted and what grind, and they started doing their black coffee magic, and then asked for my money. I groggily dug out my Visa card and handed it over, and then tried to keep my eyelids open while they did the processing. The clerk (sorry, barrista) handed back my card as chipper as can be and sent me off with a cheery "have a nice day." "Yeah, you too", I mumbled, and stumbled on outta there. It's not till I actually went to brew my java that I realized THEY HADN'T GIVEN ME MY COFFEE! I hate when that happens.
So I made my way back to the store, and the clerk (sorry, BARRISTA!) says "oh, I put it on the counter right there" (about three feet from where I'd been standing). Come on! I'm half asleep in need of coffee, you gotta put it safely in my hands, not just abandon it on the counter when you're done! Lucky for them, I was too groggy to fight it.
But I was reminded of the whole incident a couple days back, when I picked up some film. The little receipt printer ran out of money, so the clerk started fiddling around with it, finally gets it all together, hands me my package, and bids me off with a cheery "have a nice day!"
I thought maybe I would too (have a nice day that is) except when I got to my next destination, about 20 minutes away, I whipped out my Visa card, and then the clerk and I stood looking at the really cool disappearing trick I'd pulled -- there was no card in sight. Is it just me, or do you think a clerk should avoid sending you away before handing your card back into your hands? When I got back to the first store, the clerk said "I put it right on the counter here." Seems to me I handed it INTO HER HAND, so why can't she return the favor? I made some comment to this effect, and then the lady in line behind me piped up with "there's no such thing as not being given your card back, you just forgot it." I just looked at her and said "yeah, it's too early in the morning and my coffee's still on the counter at Starbucks."
Why Governments Love Crime
We got burgled recently. The crooks broke into our building by smashing a lock box, then they went into the locker area, broke into our storage locker, and cleaned it out. We called the police, but it seems these things happen too frequently for them to attend each incident. Instead, they just issued me a file number. Talk about an underwhelming feeling of security.
But that's not the worst of it.
A week later I caught the crooks going through someone else's locker, but there was nothing I could do! It was 10:45 at night, and I was alone, with my glasses on. There were two of them, one rather tall, the other making up in muscles what he lacked in height. When I came into the locker area, they left, cool as can be, and even said "hi" as they passed me. I cottoned on right away what was going down, and a quick glance at the ruined locker hasp confirmed my suspicions, so I followed them out, naively thinking they'd get into a vehicle and I could note the license number. Instead, they walked until they came to an unlit commercial lane, which they went halfway down before stopping and turning to face me. I've seen the Godfather, so I knew what kind of invitation this was. I declined, and zipped home to call the police. This time they did attend, and I got to stay up to 2:00am on a work night, giving descriptions and filling out forms.
But now for the really annoying part. I am about to get ripped off again! Only this time it's perfectly legal. See, the government has a vested interest in ensuring that burglaries continue to happen, because they profit from it! How's that, you ask? The dreaded GST!
See, Jen and I are lucky, and we have insurance, so hopefully we will get to replace our stuff (the things we can actually remember, that is). But when I was filling out the insurance claim form, I was struck by the box for TAXES. We lost $5000 worth of stuff. The replacement stuff should be tax free, because that would help keep insurance costs down for citizens, and ensure that the government isn't in conflict of interest. But it isn't tax free. Instead, with GST and PST, the government gets $700 profit from my misfortune! No wonder the police aren't too bothered about catching these guys ... the crooks might as well be on the government payroll, stealing stuff and dumping it in the Georgia Strait just to keep the Gross National Product up.
It gets worse if you think about it, because the government actually has a further disincentive to catching these guys ... as long as they're on the loose, they contribute to the government's coffers, but if they get caught and incarcerated, hell, it'll cost 70,000 bucks a year to keep them locked up in the comfort to which they've become accustomed.
All this got me to thinking that I was in the wrong line of business, but then I got laid off. Now I KNOW I was in the wrong line of business. Anyone know where I can get a cheap crowbar and a pair of black gloves?