In (Faint) Praise of Dead Tree Papers

I was perusing my dead tree paper this AM, about two and a half pages from being done with it, when this article caught my eye:

Hyundai warns owners to park outside, recalls 180,000 SUVs

Hmm, says I to I. My Tucson is considered an SUV. Maybe I should have a look?

Hyundai is telling some SUV owners to park outdoors because an electrical short in a computer could cause vehicles to catch fire...
...recalling about 180,000 Tucson SUVs in the U.S. from 2019 through 2021 to fix the problem. The company says corrosion can cause a short circuit in defective anti-lock brake circuit boards that can cause a fire even if engines are off.

Let me see...2020 is between 2019 and 2021, right? Maybe I should read the whole thing? Concerned that I might have a potential car-be-que in my garage, I put off reading the rest of the paper until I could make an inquiry at the Hyundai website at the end of the article. They said they'd mail out recall notices to affected cars...sometime in October! Sheesh! Who wants to wait a month to see if you're driving a Roman candle?

So, I go to the website: "Enter your vin number to see if your vehicle is affected." Great! That should be right next to my desk, top file drawer in a folder marked Hyundai.


Okay. Not the first folder marked Hyundai. Probably this second one.






No. But in the vicinity of those two folders? Yes! Crumpled up in the hanging folder the first two were kept in. Note to self: a little housekeeping is required in those files!

Typed in the vin number...nada. My Hyundai is not affected by the recall. However, it IS 2020, if you should read "Local Blogger Dies in Fiery Conflagration", please contact a lawyer on my behalf!

In short, I would not have known of the potential recall except for its appearance in my local dead tree paper. Yes, the news is on the web, but only if I searched for it, and why would I search for it unless I had an inkling that my car would do a 'Mrs. O'Leary's cow' in my garage? Had my car been part of the recall, it might have been another month before I found out about it and then, maybe the hard way!

I have an almost daily discussion with myself whether or not the paper is worth what I'm paying for it.

Today, put one in the 'plus' column!