I apologize in advance. I’ll try to keep this rant as un-ranty as I can, and short as I can. It’s still long and wordy.
Long Cuts
Since we’re running low on a few staples, yesterday I ordered groceries to pick up. I timed it so if I left work as soon as I got off work, I could drive straight into town to pick up my order. I’d just pulled into the parking lot when I got a text message saying my order was delayed.
Ugh. Okay, I could survive an extra ten or fifteen minutes for them to catch up. Since I was starving, I took a short detour to the lowest-carb close drive-through I could find (same parking lot).
CarWUT?
While queued up and waiting for food, my brake warning light came on. It was one I didn’t recognize, so I looked it up. The general meaning of that specific alert was HOLY SHIT DO NOT KEEP DRIVING WHATEVER YOU DO. PULL OVER AND CALL THE FIRE DEPARTMENT, THE POLICE, THE POPE IN ROME, AND ABOVE ALL, THE TOW TRUCK!!
Well, maybe not the pope.
Oh joy.
Call the Lone Arranger
At this point I was a few miles from home, waaaaaaay beyond the limit of my mobility scooter, nevermind the heat or the groceries. I pulled the few hundred feet from picking up my tacos and into one of the store’s pick-up spots, then called G. And got his voicemail, which told me he was buried under headphones.
Facebook Messenger to the rescue!
Messaged him to call me, that it was an emergency. It took less than five seconds for my phone to ring. My first words were, “I’m fine,” because this man gets panic attacks about panic attacks. I filled him in, sent a picture of the error on the dashboard, told him I’d looked it up, and what it meant.
Thankfully once he realized there was no wreck, nobody hurt, nothing like that, his panic subsided. He walked next door and the neighbors donned their cavalry gear, driving to me with G as a passenger. Therefore, we had a way home while the vehicle was towed thirty miles to the dealership. The neighbors also have a Sportage, so the plan was to load the groceries in the back of their vehicle.
We’d have to figure out how to get to the dealership to pick Stormtrooper up later.
Clock’s Ticking
When G and the neighbors pulled up next to me, I’d been there about half an hour.
…Annnd still no groceries.
G and the male half or the neighbor couple puttered around with Stormtrooper a bit. Checked the brake fluid, popped a couple of wheelies in the parking lot (as you do). The brake warning light went off, then came back on again, then went off again. The brakes behaved themselves throughout. Their he-man guy stuff took another 45-ish minutes, and I was grateful for it.
Still no groceries.
The guy in the car on the other side of us was also complaining because of the delay to picking up his order. The person loading his order was a young woman who snapped, “Things happen.”
Not one of the store personnel had the grace to apologize. It was more like, “How dare you expect us to give you the stuff you ordered and paid for? To do our actual jobs?” I get it: they were working all day, in and out of the heat, and I have no doubt they were catching hell for being behind. I’m sure it wasn’t fun. Chances are they were short-handed because somebody, or a bunch of somebodies, didn’t show up for work. Boy oh boy do I get it.
G, the neighbors and I were outside the whole time, without reprieve — in the heat, with both vehicles turned off to keep them from overheating. We were in the shade, but still… I’d been there two hours when I finally called again for an update on the groceries. I didn’t take a nasty tone, though by then it was tempting. I got back a growling, “Your order’s not ready yet.” (By now ours were the only vehicles left in the pickup area, and had been for a while.)
I asked the person on the phone to just cancel the order. Mr. Sunshine on the phone snipped, “You have to cancel it online.”
*Click*
Joke’s on Mr. Sunshine. It was indeed canceled online, and I’ll be following up with an online review.
Also as you do.
Put ‘Er in Reverse
I drove home instead of waiting for the tow truck, after the guys cooperatively decided it was possibly a computer glitch. Since the dealership was closed, the tow company planned to keep it overnight in their lot, for which I’d be billed.
That’d be a nope.
I drove back roads, slowly, with G in the passenger seat next to me and the neighbors following a safe distance behind. The warning light came on, went off, and stayed off the rest of the way home.
Epicureanlogue
Without the groceries, it was gonna be a creative-cooking week, more than I’m sure I could do and work. I might accidentally stumble over a new favorite recipe based on whatever’s in the pantry and fridge, and we’d definitely order pizza one night. However, today I learned that one of the local grocery stores does delivery, via InstaCart. Even BETTER!
I called the dealership and having the car towed in Wednesday so I can pick up Thursday. Computer glitch or not, I take no chances with brakes.
Everyone is safe and healthy. The car’s got a bumper-to-bumper warranty. I arrived home in time to clock in and do my evening catch-up at work, which only took me about five blessedly short minutes. Then I sank into a nice warm bath to de-stress.
Like I said, could’ve been far worse, on all fronts.
Teach Your Children. And Other People
On a more positive note, this weekend I finally added another series of tutorials at CustomCoverPro.com. Lots of geeky techno stuff there, which I try to make comprehensible as possible. It’s very much a work in progress. (I manage a shit-ton of mentoring groups on Facebook, and a buncha websites.) My latest thing is creating animations, and sharing the how-tos with my neophyte designers in the simplest and clearest manner I can.
There are countless YouTube videos on the process. And every single damned one of them goes through it insanely fast, far too fast for newbies. What’s more, every one I watched omitted one tiny but make-or-break step. I’m sure the YouTubers did the step. They just didn’t mention or show it in their tutorials. Way to go, YouBoob!
Random Brain Dribble
- I could’ve sworn this WordPress theme had black text on a white background, and not vice-versa. Then I realized it’s based on my Windows theme, which kinda annoys the crap out of me.
- We managed to snap a few photos Friday, discovering a tiny little community a stone’s throw from my daughter’s place. We we stumbled into it while taking some back roads home. Not even dirt-road back roads this time! I’d planned to post those photos over the weekend, instead of a rant; but, well…
- One of my (older) photos was recognized on a group with a lot of professional photographers. It was a photo I waffled about, debating if it was good enough to post at all.
- Rain has been at the periphery of weather forecasts for the past week or so. Translation: a 40% chance of rain, which is usually reduced to 20%, then 10%, then a snowball’s chance in Hell as time rolls along.
- Tucson, roughly 50 miles south of us, has already been soaked at least a couple of times. Not a drop here yet.
- Rain in the forecast or not, we’re under a heat warning for the foreseeable future, with daytime highs over 110ºF.
- Our power went out yesterday afternoon, just long enough to turn everything off, including the Internet router. Took it forever to come back up. I had to call out from work for the 10 minutes or so I was offline, because I wasn’t sure if the router was going to actually come back up at all. It’s old and needs to be replaced, but I’m too cheap to pay more to our ISP for more a new router (you’re required to use theirs) and sub-par service. If I have to pay that much more, I’ll switch to a different provider.
- There was a murder half a block away from us yesterday morning. A man walked into the tiny convenience store at the corner, pulled out a gun, and shot the clerk point blank. The killer is in custody. Nobody knows the “why”. My heart breaks for the victim’s family.
The day was worth the rant. I’m glad it seems to have worked out well. Hope you get some rain.