h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

No, Della. They were Goodyears. Not a good *month* though! We had a race here where all of the drivers boycotted due to faulty tires, I can't remember details. Car racing isn't really my "thing". No competitive sport is my "thing", really. Though I was a pretty avid swimmer back in the day.


>Meanwhile, they *don't* push their products onto others, other than through advertising. Unlike evangalistic religious types who bother you at home, at shopping centres, in the street, and who actually seek out people in need of help in order catch people when they are down and perhaps desperate. This is something I also find quite despicable.<

Me, too, Az. Even if a christian charity thinks they are "helping" by attempting religious indoctrination, even if they feel it is their "duty" to preach, I think it's wrong, and despicable, to force people to accept in order to get a bite to eat or a place to sleep.

This has reminded me that I need to find a relatively inexpensive, portable air compressor for the car. In case of future emergencies. The funniest blowout was the third one, I was at home at the time, and my sweetie arrived home late, all sweaty and disheveled. He was complaining that the wheel must have had one of those anti-theft locking lug nuts, because he'd tried for an hours and couldn't get it off. We walked to the car, jacked it back up, and I pulled the rim off with one hand. Poor guy.

Portable air compressor? Surely a spare tire is sufficient - unless two tires (or tyres) blow at once.


az

Spare tires aren't rated for high speeds or for driving very long. I'd have to look up specs, it's been so long since I've read them. Indeed, the spare tire would be sufficient to get the car to a shop in the event of a blowout, provided the blowout didn't occur too far from home. (K works in the southern suburbs, so he wouldn't want to be out of the car for very long there- really run-down, bleak neighborhood with very high crime rate.)

What we really want the compressor for is when the tires are low on air, so that they don't blow out ot begin with. The gas station charges 50 cents for 10 minutes worth of air. A compressor is about $15. Seems more cost effective when you're adding air once a week.

We can't afford a tow, not at $300 or more. Luckily, we haven't had more than one blow out at a time... just within days of each other!

Do you mean what are called 'Space Saver' tyres here? One woman was hit by a monster truck, because she couldn't avoid it, while driving on a space-saver, and her insurance compnay penalised her for using it - although she was using it just to get home after a blow out.

I don't blame you wanting a portable air-compressor, PC. Belts and braces, belts and braces...

I Googled "Space Saver" tires and from what is described, it sounds like it would be a fair assumption that a car like ours- one that's considered compact by US standards, and a mid-priced model- would likely have a space saver spare tire. There's a visible size difference and the spare has almost no tread on it. They're really only meant to get a person from the roadside to the nearest gas/service station.

But yeah, better to be extra safe than sorry.

Space saver tyres are very common here... and unfortunately, so are 18 wheeler trucks, and what I gather are known as 'Road Trains', trucks where the cab tows several units. (The Australian term for them, used here) is 'B-doubles'. They'd scare the living donuts of out me, if I drove..

Trucks like that, towing multiple trailers, scare me, too. (So do the car carriers, the trucks with the racks of cars on them. I always think one's gonna roll off and land on the hood of the car I'm in. *shiver*) I don't encounter them often because I am well into the city here and even the single-trailer trucks simply aren't allowed on the streets, they're too heavy and too wide. Around here, you mostly see them out in the suburbs and on the expressways. I live about a mile east of an expressway ramp, and that's about the closest I've been to an 18-wheeler in three years.

I haven't driven since my car wreck in 1996. I'm lucky we've got good public transport here, and it's never been much of a problem. And my better half is a very good driver. So I'm one of those people who never thinks it weird when someone says "if I drove".

It's a good thing you don't think saying 'If I drove' is weird... We live in a city with excellent public transport, and yet people think it's odd when I say I don't drive...

When Jim was little he was mesmerised by the car-carrying trucks. Most days we went past a car yard, and one of those trucks would be making a delivery of new cars. We had to stop and watch until the delivery had been done. That's one of the reasons I amglad he's 18 now, and runs his own life. Having a two year old throw a tantrum mid-street because I wanted to go on, when he wanted to watch cars, oh, the embarassment doesn't bear thinking about.

Nah. In fact, more of our friends don't drive than those who do. You just don't need to around our area. And when you do need to travel further than a bus, train or cab can carry you, there's usually someone else going who can and will bum a ride.

Little kids can definitely embarass their parents. I embarrassed my folks a couple of times when I was really little, mainly by innocently parroting racial epithets I'd heard them utter before. Which, somewhat surprisingly, mortified them!

Jim sounds like a good boy, though, from what I've heard you say about him.

Jim is great, now he's too old for public tantrums!

I vaguely remember embarassing my parents greatly, when I was 3 or 4 years old... There were children downstairs, I used to go and play with them. My Mum had a habit she kept all her life, of giving people nicknames. Well, one evening, the husband of the woman downstairs came and thumped on our door, demanding to speak to my father. I heard him 'yelling "Why did your wife teach your daughter to call my wife 'Moaner'"?

I really had thought her name was Mona....

That's kind of funny, too! Like the time I called my aunt "the Dragon Lady" because that's what my dad called her (behind her back!). Didn't know at the time that it wasn't nice. She wasn't too amused.

Of course, some adults are capable of some pretty impressive tantrums. A guy I knew a few years back had them all the time... 'twas humiliating. I never even *complain* in restaurants or shops except in a whisper, so only the person I'm complaining to can hear. What's the point of making a big stink?

Noggin calls me a 'professional complainer' because I do it so well and usually very discreetly. For example, I will always send back food in a restaurant that is cr@p, which Noggin would never do. But then he says he is much happier getting the cr@p food replaced.

People who make a big stink when complaining have obviously yet to learn the 'art of complaining'. Maybe I should write a book?


az

We went to a restaurant in the area a few months ago, and our desserts came with ice cream. I ate a bite or two of mine, made a face, and whispered to K, "mine's a bit salty, hold on...". We flagged down the waiter, I whispered to him that there was some salt in my ice cream, and held up a lump of salt large enough to fill my soup spoon.

The waiter removed our desserts, brought fresh pie *without* ice cream (a salt shaker had tipped and spilled into the freezer case), and comped the desserts and coffee. He thanked us profusely for not making a scene, as the table next to us had a half dozen or so very vocal complainers.

The guy I used to know who would have the tantrums- he once threw an enormous hissy fit because someone had the nerve to be standing at a bus stop on the same sidewalk he wanted to walk on. As if he *owned* the sidewalk. You can imagine how unpleasant the few public appearances were. One of many reasons we're not friends any more.

My mother's the same way. My father refuses to be seen with her in public places, and waits in the car. She harrangues the help so badly anywhere she goes... I've seen her reduce sales people and waitstaff to tears. Once, she threw her plate on the floor in a restaurant I used to like going to! (And she wonders why I haven't dealt with her in over a decade .)

PS- Az, would love some of your tips to good complaining. I'm trying to perfect mine.

When Noggin and I were in Madrid a couple of weeks ago we had lunch one day at a nice tapa place - and most of the food was quite fine. Then we ordered some calamari. It showed up not only 're-fried' but also as tough as shoe leather. I called the waiter over and said - 'you know, this calamari is very tough and not very nice' - and he immediately whipped it away and asked us if there was anything else we would like instead.

Mind you, if he hadn't done that I may have had to get a bit shirty.

Something similar happened with Noggin and me at one of our usual tapa places here in Seville, and of course they took the 'offending' plate of food away and offered us something else.

But you see? Noggin would never have complained - in either circumstance. He just would have eaten ick food. And I just think that is soooooooo stupid. Like, you are paying good money for good food. If you don't get good food, well . . .

I suppose if the wait staff in either occasion had not been so good about repacing ick food with something nicer I would have had to say when we got the bill that I refused to pay for food we didn't eat. No, would never throw plates, but then again I would never have to. It seems that I possess something called 'the Ray' by my friends that is capable of reducing almost anyone into a submissive jellyish heap.

I am also not above asking to *speak to the manager* in an increasing level of voice until this happens (and if you've ever heard my voice it takes a lot to raise it).

I can actually be quite scary!

But only when unfairly challenged . . .


az

Oh, yech, salty ice cream! It's a good thing it was all resolved peacefully...

I went out with a passive-aggressive (I think that's the term) guy once, to a play I hadn't wanted to go to (I'd wanted to hear Petra Kelly of the Greman Greens speak, which was on the same night.)

That being said, I enjoyed the play, but Peter didn't - it was too 'feminist'! However, it was on at the Maidment theatre at Uni, and the audience had to sit on the floor. We got there late and all the cushions were taken. Peter and I sat behind some people and kept up a continual moan that he didn't have a cushion - saying things like "Some people do like their two cushions, don't they?" in a voice that the people in front of us could hear, but thankfully, few others could. (There were two people in front of us, a couple, and somehow he thought that they should share one, and give the other to us!) In the end, the man turned around and gave his cushion to *me*! That made Peter rabid, so I gave him the cushion, got up and walked to the other side of the theatre. When we got home, I dumped him with great relief - and his reaction was to ask me for the money he'd paid for my ticket! Given that he had bought the tickets without consulting me, and I could have got them half price on a student discount, that was last straw. I am not a violent woman, but he was lucky to escape without a scragging...

I was at a bus stop yesterday, and we *had* to block the street, because since I was there last week, they've started re-building that block (of a busy main street) and have built construction thingies right out over the pavement. ) But that must have been a very embarassing guy to be with, PC..

Your mother sounds like the kind of person about which my father used to say "You can take them anywhere twice - the second time, to apologise"...

>"You can take them anywhere twice - the second time, to apologise"... <

Yep! Unfortunately, I've known quite a few people like this over the years, they're drawn to me like moths to flame. Which is odd, because I'm quite easily embarrassed by ruckuses and public spectacles.

How tacky for that guy to invite you to a play you weren't interested in seeing to begin with, then have the nerve to ask you to pay afterward. At least the play was enjoyable, if not the company. I think we've all had at least one experience like that, if not a few.

<>

Which might be why they're drawn to you - they know they can dominate you by your fear of public spectacles, they think you'll just go along with what they want, in order to avoid trouble...

It was such a relief to get shot of that guy - I realised that some people just aren't worth going out with just for the sake of not being on my own. It's embarassing for me to realise how long it took me to learn that...

Yeah, I know what you mean. I've had to cut people loose over the years, too. Live and learn, I guess.

Incidentally, a long time ago I said something about you that wasn't very nice. I'd like to apologize for having said it. No matter how vehemently we might disagree about some things, while giving each other cr*p as part of a debate/argument is one thing, it was wrong of me to say something like that about you, and in a conversation you weren't part of to boot.

Thank you, Psychocandy. I am so pleased, and I want to apologise if I have ever hurt you, by my bad temper, and my judgements, or in any other way. It is great that we have been able to talk about daily things, and just chat with each other!

The upside of having to cut people loose, is finding people you knew years ago, and becoming friends again. It's great when that happens!

I have a nice friend, just since my brother died - he was a friend of Garth's, and Garth once tried to 'get us together' - but we were both preoccupied with other people at the time - 1986! But since then, Richard and I have been out together, and we really get on. It's funny that it took 19 years...