A too long for Facebook post:
The day did not start out badly. Slept in. But just a bit. Actually got done walking The Dog with enough time to run errands before lunch. I needed to run some tax stuff to my accountant across town. I also need (want) a decorative mirror and a DVD player. There's a Target and a Wal*Mart right next to each other near my accountant so I figured at least one of them would have them. Since I was going to be out at lunchtime, it was an excuse to try one of the restaurants I'd been meaning to experience.
Now, you'd think eating a meal at a restaurant would be a relatively simple task. Restaurants exist to serve people food. In theory. But this is the year 2023. I've never eaten at Texas Roadhouse or Frisch's Big Boy. Texas Roadhouse is always either packed or closed. My last attempt, after aborting on Texas Roadhouse, I found that the Big Boy I was going to try had shut down. On the way to my accountant I identified a Big Boy, determined that the lights were on and cars were parked there. Then I realized there was a Texas Roadhouse up by my accountant. It appeared to have a few cars parked at it so I'd try that first.
The good news is, the accountant bit was quite successful. A form I thought I'd lost showed up today in the mail as I was finishing walking my dog. And no one did anything stupid on the road in front of me so I made good time (last time there was a fender-bender that shut down one lane and created about 2 miles of stop-and-go). Then my accountant was right in the lobby when I pulled up so I didn't have to ring the buzzer and stand around. I even got to have a bit of a chat with him. And that's the last thing that worked today.
On the way, my "low fuel" light came on. That gives me about 50 miles before I need gas. Stopped at Wal*Mart. I was looking for a fancy, fairly large but inexpensive mirror. Think the sort of thing you'd hang over your fireplace. About 4x3 with maybe a gold colored frame if possible. Nope. They had about 3 mirrors and none of them were remotely what I needed. So over to Target. Not only did they have no mirrors, they also had no DVD players (my DVD player and its remote have become unlinked and since a new DVD player is about $35 these days, I might as well just buy one, having exhausted my troubleshooting options).
So I stopped for gas. Now...when the car you bought new is now over 13 years old...that's a hard thing. I had to buy replacement seat covers. And the fuse for the powered driver's seat keeps blowing so I've got to hunt down that short. The AC doesn't work. All things I could live with. But the washer fluid has stopped working. It was misty today. So while I was gassing up I did some troubleshooting. The fluid level was low enough that I couldn't see it. It looked like there was plenty of fluid, but it might've just been that the blue coloring in the fluid had stained the reservoir. They had a rack of jugs of fluid right at the gas station so I decided to just grab one. It's not the fluid. So it's a blown fuse, a bad motor, a loose wire, or clogged hoses.
Then I missed the turn for Texas Roadhouse and had to drive out of my way to double back for it. It was closed. I got to the Big Boy. Decided to just grab my owner's manual for reading material at the restaurant. Good call. Too bad I'm not working on "War & Peace" though. The place was almost empty and the average age of everyone in the restaurant (including employees) was about 127. Waited at the counter for 5 minutes because the person who seats people was on her cigarette break. With *the* waitress. Wanted to keep things simple because I was in a foul mood so I ordered a Big Boy with fries and a chocolate shake. It took 3 years to get it. After serving it, the waitress disappeared again. After taking a bite I realized that about 20% of the bottom patty was missing. Bun and then a burger with a large notch out of it. Nursed the shake and the fries for a bit in futile hope of seeing the waitress before giving up, since I didn't want to eat the bun-only part as the last thing. Of course she showed up as soon as I took my first bite of that. I pointed out the problem and she asked me if I wanted another burger. Since I didn't want to wait 3 more years I just grudgingly ate it.
I should mention, it turns out Big Boy isn't, like Red Robin or some kind of Tony Roma's 3# kobe burger. It's about in between a Big Mac and a Whopper in terms of quality. It should NOT take as long as it took to make. When I finished I sat around for 5 minutes waiting for a check while the manager was trying to unfuck the mess the place was before deciding to go stand by the register. I came very VERY close to just walking out when the waitress saw me and rang up my order.
Oh. I used my phone sparingly because I'd forgotten to charge it. Just long enough to get an e-mail from my Realtor that she'll be in Thailand for her honeymoon next week. And the manual has no fuse location for the washer fluid. Two locations for the wipers but none for the washer. Oh well, I'll pop on the Internet and find it.
There is nothing useful on the Internet about where the fuse for the wiper fluid motor is.
So there you have it. My quick and simple morning has pretty much eaten the entire day while failing in almost every way. I really really hate 2023 America. The dystopian future was supposed to be a lot sexier instead of being like the Soviet Union.
And then my browser locked up from a memory leak as I started typing this.
[EDIT: Oh, and the latest Facebook "feature" (I mean, apart from the browser crashing memory leak) is a screen-filling pop-up that tells me my Facebook is now linked to my (nonexistent) Instagram for my Convenience. Now I have to kill that window along with the "My Story," the "Short Clips and Videos" and change "Most Relevant" to "Show All" for comments EVERY. SINGLE. GODDAM. TIME., among other things. I hate 2023 so goddamn much. ]
