Why My Rage Is My Master

People are always telling me to calm down and stop shouting and/or insulting them.

They never consider why they get treated that way.

Consider the following:

Yesterday marked the first commuting day of 2018, and the Bloody Long Island Railroad managed to stuff it up by having the connecting Brooklyn train arrive at Jamaica¹ so late that two more train loads of would-be commuters were waiting to cram themselves on than normal, and the next Brooklyn-bound train was sitting on a track behind it. I took the second train so as to avoid the kicking and biting needed to board the first one, and arrived at work a mere 45 minutes late as a result. This was time I had to make up.

Today the Bloody Long Island Railroad suspended service in its entirety from Jamaica² but didn't announce that until those of us wanting to go to Brooklyn had gotten off the train and that train had filled with the previous stranded passengers. Such was the crowding the Bloody Long Island Railroad had to send out men and women in orange jackets to pull people off trains, in the reverse of the Japanese practice. I joined the next crowd of kicking, biting, enraged commuters who surged on the train as the uninformed would-be Brooklyn-bound commuters got off.

And they wonder why they have to put up signs explaining that punching Bloody Long Island Railroad staff is a serious felony. One more brain cell gifted to the collective staff would be lonely.

On Christmas Eve my car's "check engine" light came on, so I ran round to a local mechanic. He announced that the problem was a camshaft sensor or the timing belt. These had both been changed at Huntington Hyundai in March and were under warranty, so I had to pick up the car, now coughing and smoking like a son of a bleep, and drive it round to the dealer. They diagnosed a camshaft sensor failure, but not the warrantied replaced sensor. Another one. There are two. Honest.

And they couldn't get the part until the New Year.

None of this was volunteered of course. I had to call them. Which I did at about 3pm, having dropped the car off at an empty shop at 7:30am. It was apparent that at 3pm they were just now looking at the car. I asked why they couldn't have told me this in the morning, and got some waffle about the chief mechanic needing to look at it all before they could comment³.

All of which has meant that during this, the coldest weather on record for the area, I have been forced to ask Mrs Stevie to give me lifts to and from the station and can ill-afford to be dumped off a train at a freezing and refuge-free Wyandanch because I had to work stupidly late to make up time the Bloody Long Island Railroad spent on my behalf.

I just got a call to say the part is now fitted and I can pick up my car today before 7pm. I explained I cannot pick up my car today because the laws of physics are in force and the Bloody Long Island Railroad will be dumping me at the station 10-15 minutes after the beautifully inconvenient closing time at Huntington Hyundai has elapsed⁴ and that I can come around tomorrow.

Mr Huntigton Hyundai ummed and ahed and finally said: "Well all right but we can't guarantee to be open tomorrow because of the blizzard expected overnight and <*twelve minutes of excuses deleted for brevity*>. Long story short, If I don't pick up my car tonight, I probably won't have it tomorrow either.

Which leaves me looking at Friday. I'd rather not be doing my car-picking-up on Friday because after I do that I'm going to have to drive down to Babylon Town Hall and apply in person for a Wyandanch parking pass.

"But Stevie" I hear you say, "why on earth didn't you apply for it at the Wyandanch Community Center on the 30th of November when you had the day off for Operation Visit Doctor Clueless And His Staff Of Incompetence?"⁵

I have a distinct memory of doing so, but neither the pass nor the phone calls I made trying to find out what happened to the pass were sent back to me, so even if I have my car I cannot use the bloody thing to go to the train station because I cannot park it there because some incompetent bleep lost the bleeping paperwork I carefully arranged to lodge a bleeping month ahead of time. And I just know in my bones that Friday will be the day that all the rich git doctors and lawyers, back from their three weeks of skiing in Colorado or scuba diving in the Bahamas and working three day weeks anyway, dispatch someone to do the same application-in-person thing, making for lines from hell.

So yes; I'm mad as hell and it's all a bunch of incompetent idiots' fault.

1. Not the good one↑
2. Still not the good one↑
3. The "Chief Mechanic" is a fictional device used by all dealer service departments, wheeled out when a reasonable customer request is not readily answerable to the dealer's credit using only the truth. It doesn't stand up to any sort of scrutiny, of course, and is dealer service department shorthand for "we can't be bothered to explain ourselves to you"↑
4. assuming no leaves are on the track or another signal problem doesn't manifest or another rail doesn't break or the number of fish in the atmosphere doesn't exceed some pre-determined mandated stuff-up level↑
5. That reminds me; I have an appointment with him on Thursday I won't be keeping because he is clueless, his staff incompetent and annoying and I don't have a bleeping car bleep damn it!↑