Complaint Hub

Dear Wonkette readers:

Uh. . . hey. How’s it going? I figure since (with three links since May 3rd) you all make up over 96% of my traffic in the last thirty days, I should say hello.

So, hello. I hope you’re enjoying it here.

I’m not exactly sure why I’ve been linked three times this month. It’s certainly nice to have people reading what I’m writing. My return traffic hasn’t gone up all that much, though, so either I’m not keeping your interest, or you’re all using RSS readers, which I’m not tracking.

I really have no idea how I could be failing to keep your interest, though. I mean, who can resist listening to me complain about owning a car in the city? You should all be riveted. And look out – later this week or early next, I expect to make a return trip to the DMV to try and get temporary tags while I wait for my title to arrive. I know you’re just shaking in anticipation, but you’re going to have to wait.

The guy who lives upstairs in my building must be protecting my car from harm. Since moving into the building in January, he’s had his convertible top cut. He had a window broken. He’s been ticketed numerous times, and towed at least twice. And last night, a hit-and-run left the whole side of his car smashed.

Now, some might argue that he has a parking spot in back that he doesn’t always use. Some would probably have a point. But I like to think that his car is a little magic talisman that attracts minor disaster, leaving my car protected from all evil. Well, I have had a few bumper taps from people parking. But that’s an accepted part of living in the city.

I worry about what’s going to happen when the new condos at the Columbia Heights Metro station open up. It’s already crowded here, and that’s undoubtedly going to make parking a nightmare. Zipcar gets more appealing every day.

Capital One may have saved themselves. I called on Friday to find out if they had started the process of sending my title. The first person I spoke to didn’t know much, but eventually I was transferred to a woman in the titling department. Seems to make sense, since I was, in fact, calling about my title.

She gave me the usual, “Oh, it’s going to take three weeks” speech that I’ve heard before. But then she asked if I’d like a request for temporary registration or something like that. I’ve forgotten exactly what she said, but I have it written down at work. She told me they could send that out in 72 hours, and that would let me get some sort of temporary registration so I don’t get ticketed.

Now, I’m not sure why no one told me this the first time I called. Well, the first time I called they thought they’d send the actual title in 72 hours, so maybe that’s why they didn’t share this option. But certainly the person I talked to last week could have offered this. And it remains to be seen whether the DMV will accept this. It was already 3:30 PM when I found this out, and I figured that the DMV phone line would be hopeless at that hour on a Friday. But first thing Monday I’m going to find out if this will help me. If so, Capital One may safely reach base this time, but not without a stern look from the manager.

It appears my brother-in-law (one of them, anyway) is back in Mexico City. You can tell this because he’s blogging again. He goes down there to study atmospheric chemistry, but spends all his time talking about Mexican facial hair.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that. I mean, I’m not sure I’d read his blog if it were primarily about atmospheric chemistry. Not because I don’t think it’s important, but because I know nothing about it. Complaining about the DMV is really more my speed. And something I am intimately familiar with.

Although, whenever I talk to people with post-graduate degrees (Which my wife’s family has about a million of) I start thinking I should go back to school. I’m not sure it makes a whole lot of sense for me, though. I have a B.A. in math, and all my professors always encouraged us to go on to grad school. But while I enjoy learning, I was never a particularly good student. I did well here and there when I really got into a class or two, but I was never the type to do those things that you need to do to succeed in school, like my homework. I got away with it for a while. My ninth-grade Spanish teacher graded us 1/4 each on homework, participation, tests, and quizzes. My test and quiz average was about 98% (It may have been higher – I think she gave a lot of extra credit, and I knew the Spanish pretty well), and my homework and participation average was about 40%, so she gave me C’s. She even kept me after class once to give me a speech to the effect of, “You know the Spanish. If you would put forth even a minimum effort to actually do the work assigned, you’d be getting A’s.” It didn’t work.

So, I generally ignore the urges to go to grad school, and they go away. Maybe I’ll go get a PHD in something weird when I retire. I think that would be fun. I would definitely call my professors “Sonny” and refer to my classmates as “whippersnappers”.