201–210 of 353 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There’s more of this than you might expect. First time I got to turn on my new Toro I went the entire way around the block.
The other side of the equation is my now dead toro had me covered in gas, frozen fingers, and plenty of swearing, with an itching desire to light it ablaze in the middle of the yard. Tis the cycle of snow blower ownership.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree. The railway now is mean, willing to prosecute, unhelpful and expensive I've read various accounts of people trying to reclaim lost baggage and it's a Kafkaesque process designed to be totally useless But the railway operators are 50% nationalised now. Northern, TransPennine, South West Railway, LNER, Greater Anglia, c2c, ScotRail, Southeastern, TfW are all government owned. And the forerunner in increasing f…
The UK railways are expensive, and I have a car, so I very rarely go by train. But all those road trips cost everyone else, in terms of congestion, pollution etc. Maybe the railways should be regarded as critical infrastructure, run at a loss and subsidised accordingly.
You realise even the subsidies go to pay Canadian pension funds [0]
My car broke down at a rest stop due to overheating and would not start again. I called a local shop on a Sunday afternoon and some guy in a tow truck pulled up and brought me to his place.
He knew immediately it was some fuel control module that dies when overheated, and just so happened to have a car he was working on to resale with the same one. I truthfully told him I probably couldn’t afford to pay him for it until I got my first paycheck and he asked how much I had. Told him about $120 to my name and he just charged me $100 and said I was good to go.
I (barely) made it to my new spot at 4am or so going 35mph to keep from overheating again. Flashers on the whole way there. Used my change jar to pay for my final tank of gas.
I didn’t fully realize how much that repair should have cost - plus the tow - plus the same day off hours service.
I think about that guy a lot and it’s informed my charitable giving ever since. I like to think I’m still paying it forward to this day when situations arise for me to help out someone in need who isn’t asking for a favor first.
Given the response I got from family when I called them to ask for a $100 loan to pay for gas on that trip informed my relationships with them for life. A stranger went out of his way more than supposedly close family did during my most dire (at the time) emergency I had ever experienced.
It was snowing. I scraped the windshield of my car. When I was done, I turned the key - and the battery was dead. I shrugged, gathered my belongings and was about to go back into my apartment building. But a woman who has just arrived in her car came up to me. And she asked, “Is your car not starting? You can use mine if you like.” I had needed seen here before. I took it. I returned it with a full tank in the evenin…
I honestly would be scared shitless lending a stranger my car.
So, someone comes to pick it up. Well, 3 someone’s. A older woman, a younger woman, and a younger man. The man was missing a decent amount of teeth and had a decent amount of prison ink.
The car they came in to pick up this enormous full size fridge was probably only slightly bigger than the fridge. It wasn’t even close to being possible to fit.
I looked over at my 25 year old truck (I love that truck more than any other vehicle I’ve had) and made a decision.
“Hey look man, I love this truck. You can borrow it to lug the fridge. Please bring it back. I’ll even level with you, if you don’t bring it back odds are I’m not even going to report it stolen, I’m just going to be bummed. I get notes on my windshield all the time asking if I’ll sell it.”
Guy kind of looks at me. The other two people glance at each other, and the whole thing felt very strange. So we load the fridge and off they go.
I looked at my wife and said “I’m never going to see that truck again, huh?”
After about 4 hours I gave up. They stole it. I was strangely ok with it. I made the decision, knowing the risks, and had accepted them.
3 hours after that, they brought my truck back. The guy gets out and kind of started sobbing. The older woman (I assume the mom) was crying. Guy gave me a huge hug. Everyone was incredibly emotional.
I didn’t ask, but can only assume they considered stealing it. I also assume they used it all day long based on the mileage.
As my mother and I sat in the reception area fighting with the hospice administrator, a medical transport pulled up and unloaded another patient. After putting the new patient back in their room the driver walked up to us as we were sliding into a heated argument with the hospice administrator.
She asked the administrator what the problem was and was told that policy was visitors can't be going into the patient area and it was very firm. They'd had issues with the local government about being slack about it. The driver turned to me and said something along the lines of "here's what we're going to do:
Since I can apparently run around freely in this place, I'm going to find your father and put a star in his window so you can always find where he is.
Number two, I'm going to give you a set of full hazard gear.
Number three" and she turned to the administrator put her finger up into her face and very sternly said, "they are going to hire you as a part time employee, in maintenance, or IT support or whatever, and your hours of employment here are going to be whenever you need to visit your father."
she turned back to me, "but this doesn't mean it's a free pass, you are going to wear all of this hazard gear whenever you come 'work' here, promise me that okay?"
She then took the administrator off to a side room, had a conversation, and I had a piece of paper to sign about 30 minutes later making me an employee of the hospice.
I made it into and out of the hospice without incident for the next week until we decided to bring my father home to die as he wasn't receiving almost any care there. I don't know what the ambulance driver and the administrator discussed, but I suspect it was the absolutely woeful state of the facility.
The look on my father's face when a head-to-toe masked man entered his room the first time, and when I took my mask off to show him I was there for him, and how the terror just simply fell from his face, is something I will always remember as is the kindness of the driver who put herself out there for us.
The period was incredibly hard, beyond the situation with my father, the medical system was in absolute shambles, and as my father's health was rapidly deteriorating, it was among the only kindness we received during that wretched journey.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The UK railways are expensive, and I have a car, so I very rarely go by train. But all those road trips cost everyone else, in terms of congestion, pollution etc. Maybe the railways should be regarded as critical infrastructure, run at a loss and subsidised accordingly.
You mean nationalised? You realise even the subsidies go to pay Canadian pension funds [0] 0: https://weownit.org.uk/who-owns-our/railways
She just handed me an umbrella and drove off after I said thank you.