We used to do quite a bit of travelling ten years ago and we used booking.com quite often. In those early days of booking online, there was a period when you could call the help line and actually talk to someone from America or Canada. And they were always helpful. We got messed up bookings back then and we always got help and figured things out. At one point, we were booking so often, we got to know one or two of the operators we kept talking to in London, Ontario.

Fast forward ten years later and I would not recommend any of them any more. All of them send you to a call center in either South / Central America, Philippines or India and like your comment said, they do absolutely as minimal as possible to do anything and keep you waiting on the phone as long as possible.

None of them work any more and it is far better to use them to shop around for quality, reviews and recommendations … then book directly with the hotel.

Use the sites and services as a guide, then find a direct phone number to the hotel and book directly with them.

Its not a feature … it’s a goal

You could always collect the gas before it exits the system … by intercepting it all at the source.

https://youtube.com/shorts/IMsReCqB-Qs

Use a propane tank and a series of valves to contain the high pressure gas … also do it outside away from people … and have 911 on speed dial.

This is assuming that this is human

It looks like the artist was asked to paint children but they only knew how to paint adults.

Do it on a Wednesday … after taco Tuesday.

and instead of 1 tbsp … they used 1 cup

My favourite … which is actually very common … is some nutjob speeding up behind me, tailgating to try to pass in the most improbable places, solid lanes, etc but doing so without success. Watching them in the mirror close enough for me see how frustrated they are and waving their hands.

After several minutes or even half an hour of following you … they finally pass.

Then immediately turn off in front of you because they reached their turn off / parking lot / restaurant / gas station / place of work.

Years ago, I’d try to avoid people like this by slowing down or even dipping at low speed onto the shoulder to let them pass … but it seldom works because they are just driving down the highway / freeway / roadway for a short distance to take their turn off.

So now, I really don’t care, I keep my speed, don’t let them affect my driving and keep a close eye on them … and sure enough, they disappear because they took their turn off.

When I see or meet anyone on the road that does anything stupid … I avoid them like the plague.

I’m not sticking around to see if the other guy/gal is going to lose it and do something stupid that will either cause a minor accident … or kill someone.

I think that’s our current iteration

He should take a 20 foot dive head first into the pool of gold coins

The Emperor’s new clothes

What’s he doing with his hand?

That’s the problem! There’s water everywhere!

We need to get rid of the water!

Would it feel better if we played the song backwards?

What was I going to comment here?

Also it was far easier 30, 40 years ago to survive a bit of exploitation, especially if you were a white male.

It’s not so easy any more.

Which now renders their site useless … I’ll go on your site to look up basic info … then go to your store to get what I want and even visit some other store or service that could give me the same product.

It’s a disincentive to want to use their site in the future.

I’ve stopped using several store websites because of this. Then when I want an actual product … I’ll call the store and ask them to look for the product for me. If they have it great, if they don’t, I’ll look for it elsewhere or figure out some other solution for myself that doesn’t involve any of their dumb websites.

I’m regressing from the internet and use people contact more and more because of this stupidity. I’m going back to the way I did things in the 90s and early 2000s where I would just use their store flyer as a guide, call the local store to ask for something and then go look for it myself because the online services today are so intrusive and needlessly complicated that its faster and more useful to not go online.

Here’s an anti-Korn meme