20090327

Add Florida

to the list of States where I've CCW'd.

20090325

As close as I've ever come to batshit unhinged in public

I once had a company car. I was given a list of eligible models and a max price, and told to pick one and get the office manager to order it for me. Had to be domestic, had to be 4-door with good interior trim and a sound system. It would be used to take my customers out for entertainment.

It was delivered about two weeks later, and it came with a fuel card. I didn't pay for the gas to put in it either.

When I was briefed on how it was to be used, and how I was to report its value on my income tax returns, it was clear that corporate tax laws made the whole racket possible. I took customers out to lunch in it perhaps twice.

That racket came rushing back to me this morning, painfully and frighteningly. I seriously was screaming at the radio in my dash, slogging along Pershing Boulevard on my way to work.

This is why: NPR ran the story of GM's car perk program.

Some mewling would-be saint mewled, "we don't get fwee caws. We don't get fwee gas. Why should they get fwee cawws and fwee gas?"

I was shocked by how forcefully and spontaneously the rage leapt from me. Drivers in the lanes beside me turned and looked.

"Bawney Fwank gets a fwee caww. He gets a fucking dwivewww. He pwobabwy even gets a secuwwity detaiww. AND SPEAKEWWW PEWWOSI DEMANDS A FUCKING GUWWWFSTWEEAM!!! FWOM MY AIWWWW FOWWWCE!!!"

Congress made this. Congress made it possible. And I am more angry about it than I would have admitted 12 hours ago.