don't be messing with my wheels.
The quote of the day:
Therefore, my Harry,
Be it thy course to busy giddy minds
With foreign quarrels;
(Just in case you thought Wag the Dog was a modern notion.)
Running news:
None today.
I had to take it in again this week. Honestly, we never had any problems with Darin's car--which is good, because immediate concern is not a good description of how Darin deals with things; he only called our insurance company today about that fender-bender last week. But this is the second problem with my car, not counting my own fender-bender a week after I got the damn thing.
And this time, the problem was serious. Real serious.
We came back from San Diego to find the air conditioner not working. Which makes the thing practically an overgrown paperweight, because you can't drive in LA without the AC.
I did drive it, of course--with all the windows and the sunroof open. And I avoided all personal contact (nobody here but sweaty ol' me!). But it was clearly important to get the car into the shop ASAP, because life without air conditioning is not worth living. Or not worth living well, at the very least.
Turned out some part or another was bad and it expanded, therefore letting all the freon leak out and rendering the AC useless. I had to leave the car in for a day and a half, and they threatened to hold it for longer because they didn't know if they had the part. I felt like saying, Hey, call another dealership, get the part from them, mo'fo. They found the part, they fixed my car, I got it back.
Nothing else had better happen to this puppy. Of course, if anything else is going to happen, I'd like it to happen while it's under warranty.
Without getting into an analysis of her last entry, permit me to say, Waaaaah: Lizzie's quit her journal. Waaaaah.
I can understand why, though: when you write an entry that is particularly provocative, for whatever reason, you get a lot of feedback. And it's sometimes very difficult to remember that the feedback usually isn't about you, it's about the letter writer. It's about their own issues, their own hangups, their own perspective, their own damage. The letter writer can't know precisely what's going on, unless they're a RL friend, and even then sometimes you might feel like saying, Hey, back off.
"Thank you for your comments" is about all one can--and often should--say, if you say anything at all.
And on to a tangential but related topic: boy, am I really pissed about the which-name-goes-in-front thing too. I have accepted it on our house, even though both of our names appear on every document--as far as mailing lists are concerned, only Darin lives here. Most of the junk mail related to the house (and you get a lot of junk mail when you buy a house!) comes in Darin's name only.
But when we bought my car, it was with the clear understanding that it was my car. This is how we talked about it with the salesman, this is how we talked about it with the paperwork guy, this is how we talked about it with each other. Both of our names went on the 8 million forms you have to fill out to buy a damn car, and mine always went first--it was, after all, my car.
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Guess who all the mail comes directed to concerning the car? Guess whose name the car is listed under at the dealership? A little parenthetical (Patterson) appears on the listing, but no one ever looks for that; I always have to ask for the car under Darin's name.
This pisses me off. This is right up there with "Haven't your changed your name yet?" I can't imagine how a woman in an unmarried couple would feel, always having something listed under her partner's name. And gay couples--whee ha. No wonder legislation should be passed...this too shall not stand.
Copyright 1998 Diane Patterson
Send comments and questions to diane@spies.com