I've noticed I've been really negative lately because a lot of negative things are happening in my life at the moment, so why not make it official and put it on ye olde blog.
1. cars
I'll do my best to make this brief, since fully detailing the history of my car's suckiness would take 26 paragraphs. I have a 2000 Saturn wagon. When I bought it in 2008, it had just under 60,000 miles on it and was in top condition. Since then, I shudder to realize I've spent somewhere in the neighborhood of $3000 on repairs.
My car hates me. And it's just me. On three separate occasions at two different mechanics, the car has been operating perfectly after being worked on for hours, the bills paid and the keys handed over to me, only to shut off spontaneously within a few miles of the garage. When taken back to the mechanics, the car behaves like a saint. They can't find a trace of the shenanigans that caused me to break down in the middle of traffic.
I'm currently suffering from the latest spate of this behavior. After two weeks at the mechanics (he was shorthanded and really busy, but I mean still, come on) and a number of parts replaced, I still have service lights illuminated on my dashboard and the spontaneous-shutting-off syndrome. All of this just reinforces my desperation to move to Europe where vehicle-free living is perfectly possible.
2. Apple
For a company that was started to make computers for mentally handicapped people, they sure make it pretty hard to get in contact with them.
I'm having problems with my ipod (first and not last evidence of this anecdote that Apple is lame) so I set up an appointment on the Apple website at the salt lake store to meet with a "genius" (their label not mine). It soon became clear that my car would prohibit me from going to my appointment, so I looked up the number of the Salt Lake store to cancel.
Instead of connecting me with a store associate, it connected me to an automated computer system, but not before playing a lengthy greeting listing what Apple products my loved ones would most enjoy this holiday season.
Once I got to the numbered menu, none of the choices even vaguely resembled "talk to a store associate, " so I went with option 5 for "other miscellaneous questions." After letting the phone ring about 286 times, I realized that Apple was never going to let me talk to a store associate, or even a real person for that matter. The Salt Lake Apple store probably doesn't even have a phone in their building; the listing that I found for them is most likely a flimsy facade to temporarily pacify people like me who are trying to honor common courtesy by saving some harried Apple employee a little time during the holiday season. Sorry for trying to be polite.
3. eating- No matter how many times I do it, I always just get hungry again a few hours later. Greedy stomach.
4. working out- No matter how many times I do it, my abs refuse to resemble a washboard. Greedy stomach muscles.
