Coffee heat rising

Angst

Twenty-First Century as Gigantic Rip-off

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Those of us who are decrepit enough to remember life in the late 1900s can surely attest that there were plenty of ripoffs on the float, back then in the “good” ole days. But jeez…

Every which way from Sunday, here’s somebody trying to siphon your money out of your wallet. I swear ta gawd!

Today I had to register the Dog Chariot. Every year or two (depending on how much you’re willing to pay at any one time), you have to trot your car into a state facility to get an emissions test, for which you have to pay about 20 bucks.

Once you pay, they give you a sheet of paper that you have to use to re-register your car. This year: the tab is $227 and change. In other words, it’s going to cost almost $250 to register a nine-year-old car. For one year.

I find this passing infuriating. Yes, I know: we need to pay to maintain the roads and hire highway patrolmen. But we already pay an exorbitant state income tax. And stiff sales taxes on everything that passes a cash register.

But evidently there’s nothing one can do about it.

For a change, though, this year’s ritual was not the unpleasant production of the past. Used to be, you’d drive in and find a dozen lanes, any one of them with ten or fifteen cars ahead of you. So you get in line and you wait and you wait and you wait and you wait and you wait and you…

…and you don’t have much choice of which line you get into. And this is August. The hottest month of the year in Arizona. (Understand: it was 112 here today…and that was actually a fairly balmy day.)

To my surprise, this time there were not very many cars and trucks ahead of me.

A worker motioned me to a line that had only one vehicle, and it was already inside the drive-thru.

So, incredibly, I didn’t have to wait long at all — only a few minutes.

Get in there…and usually they make you get out of the car and wait inside an uncomfortable booth: hot, stuffy, and claustrophobic.

This year, though, they seem to have done away with those. He didn’t even make me get out of the car!

And…it only took him a few minutes to do the job — not a quarter-hour or more. Forthwith he came back, handed me the paperwork, and said I was good to go!

Hallelujah, brothers and sisters! No hassles??????

Well.

Then you look at the paperwork.

The fee to register that nine-year-old vehicle is $227.77.

Can you imagine?

Two hundred and thirty bucks to drive a car I should have traded in four years ago?

Dayum. What do you suppose it costs to register a brand-new Venza? If they even still make them….

I don’t drive that car much. Now that I don’t have to schlep to jobs in Tempe or in Glendale, I rarely have any reason to bucket around the roads. Yeah: I drive to the grocery store, the Costco, and the occasional doctor’s or veterinarian’s office, but that’s about it.

If we had decent public transit here, I probably wouldn’t even own a car.

But we don’t, so I do.

There’s good reason not to feel safe on the city’s buses and trains. Mainly, the transients ride them for free (partly because on the train, no one is taking tickets, and partly because various organizations hand out free bus passes. And o’course, because they’re air-conditioned). Most of those folks are harmless. But some are…not. Many are ex-convicts. Most are drug users. Some are out of their heads with mental illness or the effects of street drugs. So…no. They’re not strangers you want to spend a lot of time with, in elbow-to-elbow seating. Or standing.

And that’s specifically why I don’t ride lovely Phoenix’s buses and vaunted trains.

So here we are in a city — and a state — where public transit is neither very practical nor very pleasant, and those of us who have to drive (that includes almost everyone) gets gouged for the privilege of putting our cars on the road. Don’t forget: this is not the only tax we pay. Gasoline is taxed liberally. Most retail products are taxed at the checkout counter (and points along the way thereto…). Power is taxed. Water is taxed. On and on it goes.

Not that one doesn’t want to support government and public services. But maybe the funds should be used intelligently?

Lordie! One extreme idea after another!

 

Eeeeek!

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Not to say A-a-a-a-a-k!

Just saw the BIGGEST RAT I’VE EVER SEEN IN MY LIFE!

She was lurking in the garage, and when she saw me she was just as startled as I was in spotting her. She shot underneath the dryer, where she presumably is hiding now.

Called Ruby the Corgi, who came trotting out to investigate.

Corgis are ratters. One of the things they’re bred for is chasing rats around ships and barns.

But by the time Her Majesty arrived, Rattie had dodged out of sight. Dayum!

Well, I have rat poison now. Been reluctant to put it out, lest Ruby find it and munch on it. Or…lest she find a deceased gourmet rat and eat that.

Tossed several pellets of the stuff in behind the washer and dryer, and then put some inside a rat trap along with a little slab of dog food, hoping maybe the combined deliciousness will lure Rattie into that.

Rattie, it develops, is very smart. She has exactly zero intention of strolling into a trap.

That would make her several degrees smarter than a dog, we might note.

I’ll have to keep Ruby out of the garage now, to be sure she doesn’t get into the scrumptious rat pills. Or find a rat roast to munch out there.

This is gonna be a PITA of the first water….

Speaking of water, as we scribble the much-vaunted California storm is making its way into the Valley. It’s thundering away out there, the air having chilled down to a crisp 71 degrees. We’re told to expect an 80% chance of rain and light winds.

Hmmmm…well, it may rip and roar a bit in our parts, but I doubt we’ll see any rain here. The thunder is pretty far off in the distance…I think the alleged thunderstorms are well to the north of the ‘Hood.

San Berdoo apparently got something over 13 inches of rain with this storm. Almost 12 inches in Riverside. Looks like the main part of the thing is bearing toward Nevada. Pretty startling images from the low desert of California…egad! Wunderground is predicting a .o5% chance (whoop de dooo!) of rain here, with a low of 71 during the night. Eeek. Be scared. Be very scared.

And lookee here!  I failed to “publish” this adventure. Apparently.

Trying again…

 

Brave New Annoyance….

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Lordie, am I ever tired of living in the Brave New World! Every which way from Sunday, you’re assaulted by electronic nuisances and hassles.

It’s 3:00 in the morning. I’m sitting here playing with my computer by way of passing time until the current spate of insomnia passes. It’s dark out. It’s dark in, mostly, except here in the bedroom where a nightstand light is glowing.

And what do I get serenaded with?

Low batt’ry!

Low batt’ry!

Low batt’ry!

Aaaahhhh SHEEE-UT! 

Get up and traipse into the office, whence the racket seems to be emanating. Shoof around. Several old cell phones are sitting there…is one them the culprit?

Check each one. Can’t find any way to tell, with some sort of gauge or screen or whatnot, which if any of them has a “low batt’ry!”

Plug in as many of them as I can find a cord for. One of them takes a round connector. None of the cords in there has a round connector. So I can’t attach them all. Nor can I tell which one is making the racket.

I guess if the damn thing keeps yapping, I’ll have to gather up all the portable whatnots and carry them out to the garage.

Why is this better than what we had in, say, 1950?  Is it REALLY so wonderful to have telephones that you can walk around with and distract yourself with while you’re driving that we need to be harassed constantly by the damn things?

Speaking of Storms: The Perfect $torm…

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This morning the power went out in the two back bedrooms, shutting off my Internet connection and closing down the big computer.

Jeemineee.

Called the electrician, whose services I haven’t needed in an age or two. He came over with a sidekick, and they spent the ENTIRE MORNING wrestling with the wiring. Truly: they were here for a good three or four hours, and no grass grew under their feet.

Ultimately they decided the problem lay with the previous homeowner’s DIY Adventures in Wiring. Satan, as the guy is still (un)lovingly known, made a hobby of taking on challenges in the building trades. Seriously:

  • He removed a plastic shower surround in the master bathroom and installed new plumbing and stone tile all by his manly li’l self. Nice job…except the stuff has to be resealed every six months….yes, indeed: filling the bedroom with toxic fumes each time. 😀
  • Removed flooring in living room, dining room, and hallway; replaced it with new tile.
  • Rebuilt a wall between the living room and the front bedroom, removed by a prior owner. In the process, forgot to re-install the doorbell, so….now we have to rely on those battery-operated (highly-stealable) bing-bongs.
  • Removed the asbestos popcorn from the ceilings and replastered them.
    • Note that he didn’t understand how dangerous asbestos is, and so breathed in great quantities of dust as he scraped the stuff off the ceilings…
  • Installed a new mantel over the fireplace…out of code.
  • Installed new Home Depot cabinetry and tile countertops in both bathrooms.
  • Replaced the master bedroom window with a sliding door (Burglars Welcome Here!)
  • Replaced the master bathroom sink with a shiny new Home Depot fake marble sink.
  • Filled in the wall between the living room and the front bedroom, which a Previous Genius had ripped out so as to create a gigantic party room.
  • But didn’t notice that in doing so, P.G. removed the wiring for the doorbell. So now, the only doorbell that works for this house is one of those battery-run portable things.
  • Installed, for reasons incomprehensible, an electric outlet on the front porch down near the ground, where it gets drenched every time the watering system comes on.
  • Built the side deck on the west side of the house, and did a good job of it.

Great work. Seriously!

But…

Well, if you’re not a licensed, bonded electrician, you really shouldn’t be messing with wiring and electrical fixtures. /eyeroll/

At any rate, today’s Adventure in Homeownership set me back $380.

Uh huh.

While I’m glad to get the tangle in there cleaned up some, frankly, I doubt if it was necessary. I’ve been in this house for…what? eight or ten years. And no problems have ever ensued from the wiring lash-up in the office.

Good Morning, America!

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Midnight: Weird noise outside.

What?  Pool equipment run amok? Air conditioner on the fritz? Juvenile delinquents frolicking?

Stumble outside. Cop copter is circling over the intersection of a neighborhood lane and Conduit of Blight Blvd. He flies up this way, then doubles back. Ugh.

Why DO I live in Crime Central, anyway?

Climb back into bed.

Dog wants out. Wouldn’tcha know it?

Lift dog out of bed. Follow her to the backyard.

* Cop copter is already gone. That’s somethin’, anyway.
* Wait for the dog to do her thing. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait.
* Neighbor’s AC is making the weird noise. Sounds like an expensive fix.
* Motion-sensitive backyard light is losing motion sensitivity. Does it just need a new lightbulb, or is that another expensive fix?

“Come ON, dawg!!”

*Scrabble scrabble scrabble scrabble…. Dog digs up quarter-minus.

Stumble back in the house. Lift dog back onto the bed.

{sigh}

Dog’s stomach is growling dramatically. Why did I imagine I wuz gonna get back to sleep?

Fed her…when? Around 6 p.m.

Helle’s belles. That was seven hours ago!

Do I really have to get up at 1:00 in the morning and feed the dog? And then let her out into the crime-infested night again?

Arrrrghhhh!

Every Which Way from Sunday…

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I swear-ta-gawd, the hassles and the hustles never stop. They come in every which way from Sunday, and they come in every day AND Sunday.

Today, in comes an email purporting to be from Fidelity, where vast quantities of my father’s and DXH’s money are invested. And it is one weird email…

They want me to send them my signature.

Got that? They want to capture my signature electronically.

Uh huh.

So that ever so many Great Endeavors can be vastly simplified. And speeded up. And…

Uh huh.

Well.

To begin with, I don’t do business directly with Fidelity. I hire a guy, affectionately known in these precincts as Financial Dude, to run interference with Fidelity and just about all else financial in my life.

To end with, where the Hell did Fidelity get my personal email? BECAUSE I don’t do business with them directly, there’s no reason they should have my mac.com address.

Understand: I don’t believe Fidelity is trying to scam me. What I think is that either a)  this is a legitimate message that for some incomprehensible reason was not sent through my financial manager or b) it’s a scam by crooks who found out that I had a Fidelity account and managed to extract the account number.

Scammers, many of them overseas, routinely target elder Americans. Check out this jaw-dropping piece from a guy who’s in the business of tracking them.

What I’m finding is that even when you’re aware of this phenomenon, even when you don’t pick up a phone unless you know who’s on the other end, it’s still hard to avoid. The scammers are bold; they’re convincing; and they’re persistent.

***

Financial Dude says it’s not a scam: they just want an updated signature on some paperwork. I have no idea who to call there. And soooo… About the best I can do is tell whoever sent this request that there’s no way I’m sending my signature anywhere over the Internet, and they’ll need to send something in hard copy.

Heh. Won’t they just love that?