By: David Mathews
Where did the time go?
Anyone with a driver’s license in the U.S. knows that preparing for a trip to the bureau of motor vehicles (BMV) is like preparing for a weekend camping trip. It takes so long to get anything worthwhile accomplished, you need to schedule time off work, pack food and emergency supplies and, just to be safe, bring a fresh change of clothes.
Well the Indiana BMV decided to change that impression, but their plan doesn’t have anything to do with speeding up service or adding new staff. They are now requiring each Indiana BMV branch to remove clocks from customers’ view.
The idea is that if people waiting in line for two hours can’t see a clock on the wall, they won’t know how long they’ve been waiting and therefore won’t get upset. (It is assumed, of course, that no one in Indiana wears a wristwatch.)
Next year, the BMV hopes to take the policy a step further and remove all windows from BMV branches. While the removal of clocks currently prevents most customers from determining how long they’ve been waiting, the BMV worries that scientist-types may be tipped off by conditions outside, such as nightfall.
Serious horsepower
Jim Jundt’s co-workers at the Goodyear Tire & Auto Service in Minot, N.D., laughed when he said he’d ride his horse to work if gasoline ever hit $3/gal. But Jundt wasn’t joking.
After pump prices cleared $3 last month, Jundt decided he’d had enough and saddled up his 14-year-old quarterhorse mare, Patty, for the 15-mile commute.
Now he thinks he may be on to something. Commuting by horse only takes Jundt a few minutes longer than by car, and hay is far cheaper than gas. Plus, his cape and mask really get the ladies’ attention.
Lost and found
With everyone in such a hurry these days, you never know what you might find forgotten on the side of the road.
A 19-year-old man from Littleton, Colo., recently got some assistance from his father to help start a new life in the form of $50,000 cash. Showing perhaps why his old life didn’t work out so well, the man mistakenly left the money on the roof of his car as he drove off.
As hundred-dollar bills spilled all over the street, dozens of conscientious citizens stopped to help with the cleanup. So far, though, only two of those people, a couple driving to church, have turned their findings over to police.
Not to be outdone, a Macedonian man accidentally left his wife at a gas station during a vacation driving trip to Germany.
The man said his wife usually sits in the back seat, so when he pulled out of the Italian filling station he didn’t notice that she was missing. Claiming to be “very tired and not thinking straight,” the man continued on for six hours across Italy and into Germany before he got a call from police telling him that his wife was still in Italy.
After driving all the way back, the newly pronounced World’s Worst Husband admitted, “I had a lot of apologizing to do.”
Pimp my gas cap
Flip-down DVD players, chrome rims, GPS systems—those accessories are so 2004. With gas prices continuing to rise and the art of siphoning making a comeback, auto parts retailers are reporting that this season’s must-have add-on is the locking gas cap.
Originally invented to prevent gas theft during the Great Depression, the locking gas cap has been selling out in stores like AutoZone and Pep Boys around the U.S., and suppliers can’t keep up.
Retailers are predicting that if the price of gas continues to soar, the locking gas cap could become the new pink.
What’s in a name?
Officials in an Adirondack town in Lake Placid, N.Y., have rejected a request for a road in a new subdivision to be named Notsi (pronounced “nazi”).
The Essex County Enhanced 911 agency had requested two new roads for a subdivision be given the Cherokee names Atali (meaning mountain) and Notsi (meaning pine tree), apparently without saying them out loud first.
Officials said that the new names resubmitted by the agency weren’t any more appropriate. They included Slaveri (meaning water), Bin Ladin (meaning fish) and Lung Canser (meaning rainbow).
