My Top 10 Rants

10. Paying $150 to replace the red plastic cover for the tail light I used to find the latch on my friend’s driveway gate. No longer can one simply remove 4 screws, replace the broken plastic cover, and go on with life: it’s a modular component and the whole darned (fully-functional) tail light assembly had to be replaced to fix the (broken) plastic cover. What a rip-off.

9. Replacing the plastic lever for flushing the toilet with a metal one, only to find that it slips off the plastic aperture the lever raises to flush the toilet.

8. Setting out a huge trash barrel for “clean up” day, along with a flimsy pseudo table base—and the trash truck driver only picks up the flimsy pseudo table base, NOT the huge trash barrel.

7. Putting up with the faulty engine light on the Camry, which comes on when the gas tank goes below 1/4 tank, but doesn’t go off until at least 5 future tanks of gas have been burned.

6. Cutting open gift packaging to qualify for a purchase rebate, part of the reason for buying the gift in the first place, rather than something else, and then realizing that the gift now looks like a regifted whatever.

5. Regarding the latest Speer’s pregnancy, it’s not that a 16-year-old child is pregnant with an 18-year-old’s baby: that’s biology. It’s that a 13-year-old child was allowed to date a 16-year-old 3 years ago: that’s irresponsible parenting.

4. Watching the homage paid to "Miss Patti" on Clash of the Choirs based, as best I can tell, on her age (63), her relationship to Beyonce, her family's battle with cancer, and her own long singing career. I though it was about the CHOIRS: silly me.

3. Listening to the hullabaloo about Huckabee’s Christmas ad prominently featuring a "cross,” which is actually part of the bookcase in the background. There is also a Christmas tree AND a Christmas sweater in the same shot because … it’s Christmas!

2. Pulling into a gas station advertising gas 5¢ a gallon less than the competition across the street to find that there’s an additional 50¢ fee to use an ATM card—which is, actually, an additional 5¢ a gallon increase in a 10-gallon tank of gas!

1. Believing the claim on the Super Saver skein of Red Heart Knitting Worsted: No Dye Lot. The color from one skein to the next is supposed to match, but even though I bought all 10 skeins at the same time, the shades are different from one skein to the next, which is quite apparent in the all-one-color afghan I’m crocheting!