When Barbara called during dinner, congratulating me on my new place and offering to start up a subscription to the Rocky Mountain News, I could hardly get mad. She was just doing her job, and I'm sure she has enough people acting like jerks and telling her to quit bugging them that I decided I didn't want to be one of them. I politely told her that I already had a subscription to another paper and was content with that one, but I hoped she would have a nice night. Then, I walked outside to get some stuff out of my car, and heard a camera take a picture of the inside of my pocket. That's when I stopped being forgiving of people "just doing their jobs".
What idiot engineer decided to make a flip up cell phone with a camera function and useless voice activation on the outside of the keypad? Fools, all of them! The whole point of a flip phone is to keep it harmlessly neutered when it is closed. That's it. A car doesn't start when the keys are in your pocket, the microwave doesn't cook food until you hit the start button, and Pandora.com doesn't play music on your computer until you open the browser. So why, in my phone's photo archive, do I have 26 pictures of the opaque innards of my Carhartts?
Another flaw I've found, in in a jacket of mine. I have this Patagonia coat that my mom got me, and it is almost bad-ass. The only problem is that the arms are too short. I think Patagonia decided that America likes to think it's fit and trim, but in fact, it is actually a bunch of sluggards standing on the sidelines. Sometime recently, Patagonia stopped making clothes to fit athletes, and started making stuff to fit the average REI shopper. So now I have a medium jacket that keeps my wrists warm, so long as I don't bend my elbows. The minute I try to feed myself, wipe my nose, or tie my shoes, I've got a problem. My mom got me the jacket and I've used it a fair amount over the last year, but now I'm wondering if I should try to foist it onto some armchair mountaineer browsing craigslist for the latest in outdoor fashion. I'd gladly take the proceeds and apply them on a replacement with superior sartorial effects, but would hate to bum out Mama Sus. I should wash the thing, too. Especially if it's up for sale.
And as for the ultimate in poor design, let's not overlook the abject disaster that is the radio in my Subaru. Somehow, I either lost a connection in the wires that link speakers to tuner, or applied some secret voodoo to the buttons that magically initiated a "Mute" function. One day, it was working fine, and I was singing along to Steve Miller as we both flew like eagles. I parked the car to jump in with my buddy Rob, taking his auto to go climbing for the afternoon. When I got back to Abby the Subaru, she was only capable of a whisper. Now I have the volume cranked up as loud as it will go, but can barely hear what song is playing. Not to mention that there is absolutely zero hope of catching the nasaly croaks from NPR. On top of it all, I'm a little worried that the problem will resolve itself as quickly as it came into being, and I'll jump with fright as the volume cranks back to record setting levels while a shower of blood streams forth from my shattered ear drums. I took to letting my laptop ride shotgun for a while, propped open and playing iTunes. Then I realized that if I got pulled over, I'd get a ticket for, if nothing else, being a total moron.
Guilty. But so are the audio techs at Subaru.
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