I live dangerously.

I drive a 2007 Toyota Camry.

I just found out last week that my car is on the list for TWO recalls! I guess the floor mats in my car can get  lodged somehow over the gas pedal, causing it to stay depressed, and the gas pedal assembly itself is also faulty and can stick with any assistance whatsoever from the floor mat.

I never got a phone call from Toyota telling me about these recalls. If the media had not brought these things to light, I never would have known about them.

I bought the Camry because of its wonderful safety record and stellar reputation for reliability.

When I called the dealership to find out if my car was on the recall lists, they told me that it was. When I asked them why I wasn’t notified, they told me that they were too busy to do that, and that I should have been notified by Toyota itself. 

I made an appointment to bring the car in to have the faulty accelerator replaced, and THEN the woman on the other end of the phone had the audacity to ask me if I wanted a tune-up done at the same time, for a fee, of course!

My wife and I ride all over the place in this car.  My grandchildren ride in it all the time with me.  I am angry that I could have been putting them and myself at risk because Toyota’s Quality Control department has become a little shoddy over the years.

And THEN I found out this morning that Toyota has known about this problem since BEFORE I BOUGHT THE FREAKING CAMRY!!!!! (Allstate Insurance had reported it suspicions about the Camry’s accelerator assembly back in 2007.)

The only good thing about driving the Camry now is that, when other drivers on the road see me coming, they give me a wide berth!

Fords are looking better and better to me!

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Did you know that the “T” in the word often is supposed to be silent? Un-huh. The word is oFFen.

(This mispronunciation, for some inexplicable reason, drives me nuts.)

I recently had a woman tell me that I was incorrect. She said that there was no such thing as a silent “T” in the English language.  I then spelled out “L-I-S-T-E-N” and asked her to pronounce the word for me.

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Why do conservatives make fun of Obama for using a teleprompter when he gives a speech, but think it’s ABSOLUTELY ENDEARING when Sarah Palin writes speech notes on her palms because she can’t remember the major points of her talk?
“Hey, Caribou Barbie! Wash your freaking hands!!!!”

***

Two days ago, Connecticut made the national news because a Clean Energy Power Plant under construction very close to where I work exploded and killed five workers. The mayor of Middletown, the town where the incident occurred, was on the radio this morning saying that the authorities had ruled out any kind of deliberate act of sabotage or terrorism as a reason for the blast. He did say, however, that there was now an investigation going forward to find out if there was criminal negligence involved.

Seems that, while some workers were purging the natural gas lines of air, (thus releasing some natural gas into the atmosphere in the plant), other workers were doing welding jobs in the place.

The authorities are looking into this to determine if they can charge somebody with criminal negligence. Why? Do they think that somebody blew themselves up on purpose? Do they really want to charge a dead man with a crime, and make his family suffer even more than they are now?

I can understand wanting to find out what caused the explosion, but is it really necessary to file charges if the thing was an accident, and the unsuspecting fool who did the deed is dead because of it?

***

I hate the word cheesy. I don’t know why. It just grates on me (No pun intended.) I don’t care if the word is used as a put-down – “That carpet looks kind of cheesy, huh?” or as an enticement on a restaurant menu, “Try our new, cheesy bread and cheesy fries!” It just bugs me.

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Why do we still segregate everything by gender?

We do, you know.   Sexual discrimination is alive and well in this country. It’s just a little more subtle now than it has been in the past.

Go to your program guide on your TV. You’ll see listings for College Basketball, and then you’ll see listings for Women’s College Basketball. (I guess we should glad they don’t call it Girl’s Basketball, huh?)

The same thing is true for all sports.  There’s the Professional Golf Association, (The PGA), and then there’s the Ladies’ Professional Golf Association, (The LPGA).  There’s the National Basketball Association,  (The NBA), and there’s the Women’s National Basketball Association (The WNBA).

(My father, and others of his generation, used to make the distinction between a Scientist and a WOMAN Scientist, or a Doctor and a WOMAN Doctor.)

Now, I am not suggesting that the women and men compete against each other in sports. In many sports, men would have the definite advantage because of muscle mass  and body bulk. That’s not the point.

My question is,  why do the adjectives women’s  and ladies’ have to be used to differentiate between what some consider the “REAL” sports associations and the lesser “WOMEN’S” sports associations?

You think I’m nuts or that I’m being too picky?  Okay. Then would you have a problem if we changed the names around a little bit so that we had “The National Basketball Association” and “The GENTLEMEN’S National Basketball Association”?