"My Personal Rants"

By Ron Stultz

3 April 2009

Rants, everyone has them. These are some of mine:

- Poorly designed anything.

- Anything pretending to be real but isn't

- Being called: "darling"; "honey"; "sweetie"; "baby" or any other "term of endearment."

- Mechanics that put a wheel on a car with no grease on the lug nuts and then use an air impact wrench to tighten the lug nuts so tight I have to stand on a lug nut wrench to get a lug nut to budge!

- "All new" as in "all new" TV episode. What, some of the new is not "new?"

- People who leave shopping carts in the parking lot after they load their car and leave. Too lazy to return cart to store or at least get it out of the way for someone else to park?

- The accelerated pace of obsolesce. Everything ought have a life span of more than 1 year and parts ought be available forever.

- The United State's hang up with sex. Hardly anyone bats an eye if we "accidentally" drop a 10,000 pound bomb and kill innocents but let one boob show on nation television.

- The size of print on over-the-counter medication bottles. All I want to know is the dosage and you would think that would be the largest font on the label but try to find it sometime.

- How television news has become tabloid. Sizzle and no substance. Where is Walter Cronkite when we need him?

- Income tax complication. Every year it gets modified, expanded, changed. Even Congressmen can not do their own taxes correctly.

- Hype. In all sizes and shapes.

- In Virginia we have all sorts of DWI laws and yet, hard liquor is sold by the bottle in a state owned and run retail store and, and now, many are open on Sunday. Get the state out of the liquor business.

- Airline ticket prices. Understand about fuel costs and all but how can a ticket from X to Y be one price when you check it at 10am and then a different price at 11am? And why does a ticket bought on day of travel cost a small fortune? Would seem that if they have a seat available on the day of the flight, would be willing to sell it for cheapest seat sold on that flight.

- People just standing in an isle, blocking the way for anyone wanting to get past.  Apparently they have the right to stop traffic?

- Mail delivery. Know there are billions of pieces of mail delivered each year and only a very small, fraction of one percent gets delivered to the wrong address but why is it always my mail that gets screwed up? Either my mail goes somewhere else or I get someone else's mail.

- Once in an electronic database, always in an electronic database. Still getting mail for fellow who owned my current home and he has been deceased for over 18 years now. For a while, was marking mail "deceased" and returning but gave that up.

- "Life time" warranty. Sure! Try to even find the company that sold you that gizmo 5 years from now.