On heated car seats and husbands messing with the effing car...
Posted: 12 Feb 2016, 17:23
Okay, I'll admit it...I was bitching like a madwoman when the husband was determined that I should trade in my *very* gently used (2008 Scion XB) car with just barely over 40K miles on it for a newer, much fancier car. WTF? As I've said previously, all I care about is dependable transportation to get me from point A to point B. Still, I gave in to his repeated requests that I do so in spite of my initial misgivings. What can I say? As a woman who would much rather avoid conflict of any sort and, since it was SO important to him (and not AT ALL important to me!) and, since we could comfortably afford it, yes, I DID give in! And you know what?? While it took me a week or two to fully appreciate my new "wheels," I must say that I'm glad to have done so, because this vehicle is, by far, the nicest car I've ever owned! And yes, even though it's a few years older than the brand-new Volvo that the hubby bought last year, it's much, much NICER than his car...so much so, that even HE wants to drive it rather than his own whenever he can! Unfortunately, there have been a few problems associated with his continued use of my new (for me) car...
While it's nice that this vehicle is, in fact, fully "loaded" (the leather upholstery, the Bluetooth, the trip computer, moonroof, souped-up stereo, etc., are very, very nice), this thing has ONE "option" which I HATE -- heated car seats! Yury's previous Volvo had them, and I positively despised them. And yes, MY car now has them, too. No big deal, if I were the ONLY person driving it! I'd simply never use the damned things, keep them turned off, and that would be the end of it! Unfortunately, since the husband drives MY car far more frequently than he now drives his own, his use of the heated car seats (and NOT turning the damned things off when he's done with the car!) caused me more than a moment's discomfort yesterday. The Mad Russian drove my car to work yesterday (which was no big deal -- I had yesterday off at my "day" job and had picked up a night shift last night at my PRN position in an attempt to alleviate, somewhat, the "pay cut" I'd taken with my new position, so I didn't NEED the car until later in the day!). Unfortunately, when he got home, he DIDN'T turn off that feature which annoys me so incredibly. And, when I got into the car to leave for my night shift, I didn't double-check to make certain that said annoying feature was turned off! Initially, my trip to work began without incident. BUT, after about two miles from my home, I felt a slowly spreading feeling of warmth on my bottom. And, because I was focused on other things at the moment, I didn't THINK about the freaking seat-warmer -- after all, I'm NOT used to having one in my vehicle! As a woman over 50 who's had a couple of kids and whose pelvic floor muscles aren't what they used to be, I was initially horrified, thinking that the spreading warmth beneath my bottom meant that I had peed my pants! It took me a few moments to figure out that the husband had neglected to turn the seat-warmer off, but those were moments of pure horror!
The rest of the night passed uneventfully (and, rather pleasantly, I might add -- I miss seeing my night-shift peeps on a regular basis!), BUT you may be certain that when I got home, the Mad Russian got an earful...not ONLY because he left the seat-warmer on, but because he messed with my climate controls in the car so that everything reads in Celsius rather than in Fahrenheit! Don't get me wrong -- I'm *more* than capable of doing the metric conversions, etc., but the whole situation has me more than a little bit pissed off! This is, supposedly, MY car, after all! The husband has HIS VERY OWN brand-new car (which he keeps garaged during this nasty winter weather for the most part) and THAT car is set up exactly the way that HE likes it...as it SHOULD be! I would think that I deserve the same consideration! While there have been many days that he's taken my car and left me with his, I've NEVER messed with his settings! He likes to keep everything in his car using the metric system, even though we use the English system here (i.e., mph rather than kph), but if he wants to have his speedometer set at kph even though our speed limit signs here are in mph, that's HIS business! As I said, since I'm capable of making the conversions, it's no big deal! But I should think that I should be able to keep the settings in MY car according to my own preferences, without having him mess with the damn things! And yes, you may imagine that I bitched him out, up, down and sideways when I finally got home this morning! As I told him, it doesn't matter to me WHICH car I use on a regular basis...if he wants mine, he can have it, and I'll take his, but whichever car I drive regularly, he's NOT to mess with the freaking settings that I've chosen, especially since he can't seem to figure out how to put them back to what they were once he's done messing around!
And yes, I know, I'm sounding like a whiny bitch, here...if having my husband mess with my car settings is the *biggest* problem that I have in life today (besides my clinical students, which are a different story, entirely and a subject for a completely different post), I'm a reasonably lucky girl! Still, y'all know that I can't be *entirely* happy for long unless I have SOMETHING to bitch about!
While it's nice that this vehicle is, in fact, fully "loaded" (the leather upholstery, the Bluetooth, the trip computer, moonroof, souped-up stereo, etc., are very, very nice), this thing has ONE "option" which I HATE -- heated car seats! Yury's previous Volvo had them, and I positively despised them. And yes, MY car now has them, too. No big deal, if I were the ONLY person driving it! I'd simply never use the damned things, keep them turned off, and that would be the end of it! Unfortunately, since the husband drives MY car far more frequently than he now drives his own, his use of the heated car seats (and NOT turning the damned things off when he's done with the car!) caused me more than a moment's discomfort yesterday. The Mad Russian drove my car to work yesterday (which was no big deal -- I had yesterday off at my "day" job and had picked up a night shift last night at my PRN position in an attempt to alleviate, somewhat, the "pay cut" I'd taken with my new position, so I didn't NEED the car until later in the day!). Unfortunately, when he got home, he DIDN'T turn off that feature which annoys me so incredibly. And, when I got into the car to leave for my night shift, I didn't double-check to make certain that said annoying feature was turned off! Initially, my trip to work began without incident. BUT, after about two miles from my home, I felt a slowly spreading feeling of warmth on my bottom. And, because I was focused on other things at the moment, I didn't THINK about the freaking seat-warmer -- after all, I'm NOT used to having one in my vehicle! As a woman over 50 who's had a couple of kids and whose pelvic floor muscles aren't what they used to be, I was initially horrified, thinking that the spreading warmth beneath my bottom meant that I had peed my pants! It took me a few moments to figure out that the husband had neglected to turn the seat-warmer off, but those were moments of pure horror!
The rest of the night passed uneventfully (and, rather pleasantly, I might add -- I miss seeing my night-shift peeps on a regular basis!), BUT you may be certain that when I got home, the Mad Russian got an earful...not ONLY because he left the seat-warmer on, but because he messed with my climate controls in the car so that everything reads in Celsius rather than in Fahrenheit! Don't get me wrong -- I'm *more* than capable of doing the metric conversions, etc., but the whole situation has me more than a little bit pissed off! This is, supposedly, MY car, after all! The husband has HIS VERY OWN brand-new car (which he keeps garaged during this nasty winter weather for the most part) and THAT car is set up exactly the way that HE likes it...as it SHOULD be! I would think that I deserve the same consideration! While there have been many days that he's taken my car and left me with his, I've NEVER messed with his settings! He likes to keep everything in his car using the metric system, even though we use the English system here (i.e., mph rather than kph), but if he wants to have his speedometer set at kph even though our speed limit signs here are in mph, that's HIS business! As I said, since I'm capable of making the conversions, it's no big deal! But I should think that I should be able to keep the settings in MY car according to my own preferences, without having him mess with the damn things! And yes, you may imagine that I bitched him out, up, down and sideways when I finally got home this morning! As I told him, it doesn't matter to me WHICH car I use on a regular basis...if he wants mine, he can have it, and I'll take his, but whichever car I drive regularly, he's NOT to mess with the freaking settings that I've chosen, especially since he can't seem to figure out how to put them back to what they were once he's done messing around!
And yes, I know, I'm sounding like a whiny bitch, here...if having my husband mess with my car settings is the *biggest* problem that I have in life today (besides my clinical students, which are a different story, entirely and a subject for a completely different post), I'm a reasonably lucky girl! Still, y'all know that I can't be *entirely* happy for long unless I have SOMETHING to bitch about!