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Why plastic, especially cheap plastic, sucks.

Sahara

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FBBO Gold Member
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Way North Canada. Polar Bear shaped license plates
Like most of Canada we are getting hit with cold temps. Minus forty, without factoring in windchill like a pussy.
Besides it being painfully cold to just be outside, weaknesses in our vehicles are suddenly brought to light. Plastic does not like to freeze.
If your battery is weak, or block heater doesn’t work, or you don’t run synthetic oil you will find yourself in need of a boost.
You go to open your hood. If the safety latch is behind a plastic grill you will break the grill when you put your hand in to open the latch. And because the opening is too small for gloves you will painfully freeze your finger tips. You manage to open the hood only to find that the hood support rod is held by a plastic clip, which now shatters from the cold. The cheap soccer mom booster cables that you keep in your vehicle are neatly coiled in the trunk. The plastic on the cable shatters and falls on the ground when you try to uncoil them, leading to the possibility of shorting red to ground. The red insulating cap on the battery terminal is frozen to the consistency of cast iron. You have to remove your mitts to remove it, and if you are wearing gloves thin enough to work in your finger tips freeze anyway.
Years ago some idiot suggested using a credit card to scrape frost from your windshield. It takes a few weeks to get a replacement card after yours shatters into a million pieces from the cold.
Music CD’s, unbreakable in the summer shatter like glass, as does the plastic case you are trying to put it in.
Plastic sucks, especially cheap plastic.
 
The obvious response from someone like me mirrors the sentiments of Sam Kinison.



WHY stay in a place that is so friggin UNinhabitable?
 
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What about the olden time sitting on a frozen vinyl seat that cracks from the cold, while you still freeze your *** off!
 
The obvious response from someone like me mirrors the sentiments of Sam Kinison.



WHY stay in a place that is so friggin inhabitable?

I’m not sure that I can properly put it into words, but for many of us it’s what we know. I’ve been here for more then fifty years, you sort of accept it as being how life is. For us, or at least me, we can’t understand why people live in crowded areas, or places that are too hot. Yet people in those places accept it as their normal. In the same way that cold is unpleasant, I prefer it to human noise or extreme heat.
 
110 is pretty hot. We get many days like that here. It doesn't stop me from being outside.
It may be like you say a matter of what you are accustomed to.
I'm not in a crowded area but I wouldn't mind living around fewer people. It isn't noisy here but I can hear traffic sometimes. I absolutely hate the cold. I hate wearing multiple layers of clothes to do things outside. I spent many years working in shorts and often even without a shirt...construction, framing houses. The less clothes, the more comfortable I feel.
Digging out a driveway to clear a path to get to work?

1 no, just no.jpg


Scraping ice off of my car to drive it?

1 HHuh.jpg


Wearing clothes so thick I end up pissing myself before I can strip down to whip it out?

1 sweat.jpg


No, thanks...
 
I spent many years working in shorts and often even without a shirt...construction, framing houses. The less clothes, the more comfortable I feel.
Digging out a driveway to clear a path to get to work?



View attachment 1390929

Wearing clothes so thick I end up pissing myself before I can strip down to whip it out?

View attachment 1390931

No, thanks...
Same here....worked outside a lot without a shirt but didn't wear shorts when working with greasy stuff on cars. Hard enough to clean the upper body and legs too! Grew up in the NE and enjoyed playing in the snow etc and had a good time with the few times it snowed here but sure wouldn't want to shovel it. And it gets cold enough here at times to where I didn't want to be outside and also experience the slow 'whip out' and the older I get, the sooner I go when it first says it's time.
 
Yep, I’m with Kerndog and Mr Cranky, I rather be in shorts and t shirt with record high temps, then this cold BS. Also bikinis beat yoga pants (on attractive women, I know people in this forum that will twist that.)

Back to plastic, When I was wiring houses if it was 40 degrees or below, the plastic plug boxes would shatter when you try to nail them on. Already annoying enough being in the cold then that BS, no!
 
I started wearing gloves on the job when I started developing cracks and sores from my hands getting dry. I hated it at first but got used to it....but those were thin Milwaukee style gloves. You lose dexterity and feel with anything thicker.
 
I paint for a living specifically because I don’t like working in cold or wet. On a separate, unrelated note: I paint for the government. As such I have to wear safety boots, reflective hi viz vest, and quite likely soon a hard hat. I paint schools and a prison where the students can wear daisy dukes, a halter top and sandals, and the prisoners wear slippers and sweats, but to be in the same area as them I have to suit up, fill out a tailgate form and do a job hazard assessment. Makes me nuts.
 
I paint for a living specifically because I don’t like working in cold or wet. On a separate, unrelated note: I paint for the government. As such I have to wear safety boots, reflective hi viz vest, and quite likely soon a hard hat. I paint schools and a prison where the students can wear daisy dukes, a halter top and sandals, and the prisoners wear slippers and sweats, but to be in the same area as them I have to suit up, fill out a tailgate form and do a job hazard assessment. Makes me nuts.
If you’re working in schools, you definitely need that hard hat! :rofl:
 
I actually googled it, they don’t freeze, the body temperature helps keep them from doing that, and some other scientific non sense. But still we need to do a survey and a hands on experiment to be sure.
 
If you are too hot or too cold, move. Unless you are just a grump. Then please stay there!
 
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