The little things

The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step (regardless of whether that journey's ultimate destination is heaven or hell). I know the non-parenthetical part of that saying is supposed to mean that you have to start somewhere, but I'm using it here to illustrate another cliché — it's the little things.

Consider my Windoze laptop. I was really excited to get it, but now I hate it, to the point that, if it belonged to me and not the school I would smash the fuck out of it for the sheer satisfaction of it, economics be damned.

Why? The little things, like how I can't get it to connect to the internet via my wireless network. Oh, I know, all my Winfriends always tell me, "did you try renewing your DHCP lease while inhaling through your left nostril and exhaling through your right nostril, balancing on one foot, thinking the word "chicken" and sticking your finger in your butt?" No, I haven't, and ew.

You know I connect my Powerbook to the network? I turn it on. I know Windows has major problems, but it's the little things that drive me nuts. Similarly, I know the Mac operating system isn't perfect, nor are the hardware platforms on which it runs, but Apple gets so many of the little things right, where Windows gets them wrong, and let me tell you, I am the kind of guy who sweats the little things.

What I'm not is the kind of guy who honks at people all the time. Consider this list of annoying driving behaviors I don't honk at people for:

• Failure to signal
• Cutting me off
• Changing multiple lanes

Also, have you ever seen that phenomenon where traffic is moving very slowly, but the carpool lane is more or less empty, yet some clown in the carpool lane insists on driving slowly, like it makes them nervous to be driving so much faster than everyone else, which is the very purpose of BEING in the carpool lane?

Similar is when you have two lanes of traffic, one frozen, one moving freely, and someone in the free lane wants to be in the frozen lane, so they stop, jamming the free lane, and just sit there, trying to get into the frozen lane.

As an aside, this is a sub-behavior of the greater problem of people who make a mistake when driving, like, say, being in the left lane when they want to turn right. I have seen people turn right across three lanes of traffic, drive backwards up a freeway onramp, and, my favorite, just sit there, frozen in indecision, unable to make the maneuver they want, but unwilling to finish the maneuver they began.

I never do this, and I'm not just whistling Dixie. Yesterday, for example, I meant to be in the left lane, but instead was in the right lane, which merged onto the 520 bridge, which took me across a lake several miles out of my way, but once I realized I was getting on the freeway by mistake, I just let it happen. I would rather drive to Mercer Island and turn around than be "that guy."

Anyway, the five behaviors I've listed here are all annoying, but they're all relatively little things. However, this morning, someone did all five to me, simultaneously. That is, a guy cut across multiple lanes of traffic, not a signal to be seen, cutting me off, causing me to slam on my brakes to keep from rear-ending him, then proceeded to drive 40 down the completely unfettered carpool lane until eventually coming to a complete stop when he couldn't get back over.

Yeah, I honked at that guy, just like I honked at the woman yesterday who didn't go when the light turned green because she was digging around in the her purse while talking on her cell phone. Of course, when she started driving, she was still bent over sideways looking around in her purse while talking on her cell phone. Good thing she was driving a giant SUV. I'd hate to think she was endangering her own life.

Yes, the little things add up, and sometimes they form trends. Consider my car, which I hate. There are a lot of little things about my car, like the fact it's a Kia, lacks "get up and go," has surprisingly poor gas mileage, and didn't come with air conditioning. Still, I can't blame it for those things. I knew, or should have known, all those things when I bought it.

No, I hate the car because it's an unreliable piece of crap, a rather noticeable trend made up of little things. For example, the driver's side vanity mirror shattered. I didn't do anything to it, just one day it was shattered. Maybe it came like that from the factory and I never noticed it. Maybe it's the tension from the mounting. Who knows, but it's one little thing.

The trunk release doesn't work, and every time I got it fixed, it would break again within 24 hours. I finally just gave up on it, just as I've given up on the high-mounted brake light, which is dissolving, I guess from the sun. Also, the trunk assembly in general is full of little plastic pieces that keep falling off or breaking in half.

The car has random electrical problems. The driver's speaker doesn't work. The headlights once stopped working. The fan has stopped working on more than one occasion, and I actually had to get the master wiring harness replaced, which is a can of worms I don't even want to get into right now.

Suffice it to say, I spent a lot of time sitting in the lobby of my local dealership, and unlike your friendly neighborhood Lexus dealer, Kia dealers are not very friendly, give a level of service surprisingly poor for the cost, and leave you coated with a layer of slime simple showering doesn't remove.

When I bought the car, I did so because I was driving this unreliable Accord with electrical problems and wanted something I could trust. I wasn't looking for cool or fast or comfortable or (believe it or not) cheap. Oh sure, it was all I could afford, but let's be real — a new Kia and a used Mark 1 Lexus aren't too far apart in price.

But, I wasn't thinking of cars as anything more than the means to satisfy my need to get to point B from point A, and I thought having a new car under warranty would spare me from being in that situation where I have a car, I pay for a car, yet I'm riding the bus to work. With all the repairs I've needed, that ten year warranty has been worth the car's weight in shit.

For one thing, a warranty means your repairs are free. It doesn't mean the car won't be in the shop for a week while your ass is riding the bus. It doesn't cover a rental car or a loaner and, here's the real key, it doesn't make the dealer give a rat's ass about your transportation needs. Oh, and it doesn't mean your repairs are free. What?

So the fan on the Kia broke at least twice before the total electrical failure and subsequent "don't want to talk about it" clusterfuck that led to me falling out with my dealer. When the fan went out again I assumed it was the same electrical problem rearing its ugly head and took it in to a (different) dealer, who subsequently charged me several hundred dollars to fix it.

You see, the cable that connects the fan to the controls had simply fallen off, and had to be put back, necessitating the removal of the dashboard, which takes several hours, and results in a rather large labor cost. This service is not a repair, but an adjustment, according to the definition of the word subscribed to by the dealer, and as listed in the Oxford English Dictionary of the Criminally Insane.

Cars require a lot of adjustments and it's held that these are not covered under warranty, because they are to be expected. For example, the fluids need to be checked, the tires need to be dealt with, and the wiper blades need to be changed. Another great example of an adjustment is the brake service you need from time to time, and the wheel alignment I had to get after the car chewed through its idiotically hard-to-find stock tires.

One thing you'll notice about adjustments is that they do not involve anything falling off, nor do they involve safety features (such as an already piss-poor defrost fan) suddenly failing, nor do they involve removing the dashboard. Now repairs, the kind covered under warranty, can involve those things, but adjustments, no.

But here's the punch line — the fan has stopped working again. That's right, the fan has failed for one reason or another, at least once a year, every year I've owned the car. Looks like I better prepare my wallet for getting adjusted again. I tell you one thing, and mark my words, as soon as I can afford it, I'm getting a Lexus.

Cars — all cars — are noisy, dirty, expensive pains in the ass that may or may not be there for you when you need to get somewhere, so you might as well make the most of them. Yes, my Lexus once (and only ocne, in over ten years) randomly stopped working, and, yes, it was expensive to fix, but you know what? In the meantime, it was still a Lexus.