Weirdness

[altivo]

I've had a lot of strange e-mail, but today was the first one from "beyond the grave". My younger brother writes to tell me he has been dead nine days. My sister-in-law apparently received an e-mail from a monument company telling her that they were VA approved and offering to produce a custom headstone for him. Of course, she immediately called him up to tell him he was dead and he'd better stop walking around like that. The cause of the error? Someone 25 years older, with the same first and last name but a different middle initial and living in the same state, had indeed passed away. They laughed about it at first, but now she says flowers and condolences are arriving and she's having to turn them away too. I hope Social Security doesn't get confused and mark him down as dead too. I understand it is really hard to convince them you are still alive once that happens.

In other news, still no replacement tire for my car. This "just in time" inventory stuff is really stupid crap, that's all I can say. They aren't even sure they can have it tomorrow. I took the car back and am driving it on the spare, which I don't like but it's not practical for me to get to and from work without it.

The young kid who drove the car across town from the dealership to the library to return it to me mentioned his surprise that I had a manual transmission. He didn't know you could get an Escape that way. I told him you just had to ask for it. "No, seriously," he said. "I didn't know they even made them that way." More weirdness. When I calculate my gas mileage, though, I'm sure glad I have the stick shift. Now that the weather has moderated, I'm back up to 29+ mpg.