Complex Numbers

Rant Mode On

And another one for "JAFBG"  [XGC].

Tell us about something/someone that fucked you off this week.

Well. If we're only going back a week, I could talk about the rental car company, who overcharged me. Okay, they didn't really; it cost exactly what it said on the label. It's just that there were only two rental companies in town. You know them; they're the big names: Hertz, named after the electric shock you get when you see the bill, and Avis, which is French for "opinion" as in "in my opinion, Hertz sucks balls, but Avis is worse."

So, with no competition, they can charge whatever the hell they want to charge. And why is it that they make you bring the car back with a full tank of gas, forcing you to buy gas from the nearest station to the car lot, which inevitably has a 25% surcharge on fuel? Which is still better than the $6 a gallon they charge if you fail to fill the tank, but it's still robbery.

I rented the car on Monday but returned it Wednesday morning, so it's still technically less than 7 days ago as I write this.

Also on Wednesday, I flew home. Delta. Oh, I would love to rant about Delta... but the flights weren't all that bad, considering, and in a stark reversal from its usual policy, the Universe didn't hit me with a bunch of delays and cancellations that usually force me to find alternative means of transportation.

Still, airplane food, amirite? If only they still served booze on the flight. Makes me want to swear off flying forever, but there's no other way to get to Belgium next year.

Or I could complain about that perennial goblin, the DMV. Or BMV in some states, but here in Virginia it's the DMV. You all know the drill: in normal times, it's long lines and crowded waiting rooms. Bringing a copy of War & Peace won't cut it; you gotta bring the entire Wheel of Time series. Or, at least, that's what it would be if they still let people just wander in.

Let me back up. Because my car was totaled, I need to give the insurance company my title to the thing. Naturally, it's... somewhere. Who knows? So I need to get a replacement title. As such, I have two choices:

1) Make an appointment for seeing the one remaining employee at the DMV -- currently, there's nothing within 90 days, and they only schedule within 90 days. Or

2) Fill out a form online and wait up to 15 business days for them to mail me the replacement title.

Obviously, option 2 is marginally faster. Or would be if their website worked. Okay, to be fair, it probably works fine, but only if I turn off all the tracking prevention add-ons I have to slap onto my browser in order to have some measure of security.

If I don't find the title somewhere in my house today, probably under a pile of useless garbage, I'll try the online form with a different browser. As long as I only visit the DMV site, there's not much they can track, right?

But let's face it, the DMV is a too-easy target for rants.

How about my discovery that every car available right now for purchase, of which there are few, is overpriced?

I mean, this is not really a discovery. Supply chain issues, especially regarding computer chips, are well-documented. I knew this going in, but then, I wasn't expecting to have to replace my car this year so I figured, wait a couple more years and this shit will get sorted out. Well, I can go without a car for a while -- there was a period of six months last year when I didn't drive at all -- but eventually I'm going to have to suck it up and buy something.

But really, despite all this, I've had a pretty good week. I get groceries and beer delivered, and almost everything else I need is in walking distance. Which would be good for me if temperatures weren't in the 90s, but whatever; it's July in Virginia, and that shit happens, climate change or no climate change.

So, yeah, prompt or not, I don't mean to give the impression that life is some sort of slog. It's not. It's just that I can find something good and something bad in any given week, and for this prompt I kind of had to dredge something up.