Daily Dose

Let me tell you about my yesterday and how glad I am that it is my yesterday and not my today. Yesterday stunk. And this is much longer than my preferred three paragraphs but I don’t particularly care, ya know?

I got up with the alarm at 6:10am, which is really 6am because my clock is screwy and it’s some funky travel clock that TW bought in the airport a few years ago to replace my old Korean Air travel alarm clock that I loved until it died and I hate changing the time or the alarm on it. I’m never sure I’ve done it just right, which is ridiculous because it’s just not that hard but whatever.

I turned on the computer, grabbed the smiley coffee cup with an inch of coffee left in it from the night before and nuked it for 30 seconds. Fed the dogs, fed the cats and sat down to drink the coffee and read email. Thank goodness for webcrossing and their email digests! I posted some morning posts on message boards, read the news feeds in my aggregator, let the dogs in and checked to see if there was another inch of coffee lurking in the pot from the day before. There wasn’t. Typical morning, except for the no coffee part.

By then it was 7:10 and I headed to the bedroom where I found TW still asleep. I suggested she get up since we leave to take her to work at 7:30. She moaned and murmured she wasn’t going to work, she was sick. I sighed and sat on the floor contemplating how TW at home might change my day. The biggest issue was lack of coffee. No regular morning trip to Starbucks was going to happen and I had no beans to grind! I figured she wasn’t up for any grand gestures that would totally disrupt the day. (I was right)

I sighed, got dressed and grabbed Dexter and the keys and headed toward the Subaru dealer to leave Babe for his 90,000 mile check up (he’ got 102,000 on him lol) and to get the clock fixed and have them figure out what’s causing the road noise in the back of the vehicle.

I got there at 8 on the dot and was told the courtesy shuttle had just left but would be right back. Right, I figured it would be 9 before I was picked up and sat down to read. I’d only read about 3 pages when I was called to the shuttle – cool! This was shaping up to be a great day. Just me and the shuttle driver, or so I thought. Turns out another dude was going to drive a vehicle over to the glass shop and we’d have to go there as well so the guy could ride back in the shuttle. No problem, it’s on the way. But we get there and the parking lot is filled with the Blood Donor bus and lots of maneuvering and cursing ensued about how to get the car that needed the glass repair in there. Why would they park that blood donor bus there? No street traffic and the place is just not big enough to warrant an employee blood drive. Weird.

No sooner do they get the car into the parking lot and they discover the windshield that needs to be installed isn’t in the vehicle! So, we drive back to the dealer which is still not a big deal because it’s only 8:25 or so. I’m still ahead of schedule. I’m reading my book again and the driver comes back and says it will be a minute, h’s got a kid to drop off over by my house but he needs to get his bag. I quickly realize that when he said kid he really meant kid.

I hear a mom and a kid arguing about which is the right bag and a lot of mom fussing about hurrying up and what are you doing in there and then a 10 year old boy jumps in.
Before the driver could get the door shut, the kid is jumping out again – to give his mom a kiss. Aweeeeee (weird but still an aweeee moment). The kid’s mom is the manager and he’s heading to golf camp. And he sits behind me making odd noises which were amusing because it was still only 8:45 and I’d be home by 9. Still earlier than I had expected!

The morning passes relatively well. TW slept and I worked. I started some more laundry, cleaned up the dirty towels from the little kids’ bathroom that they’d left there two weeks ago and hid E’s birthday gifts which had been sitting in the living room for a week. And, my 40lb surprise from TW arrived! Yea!

Kids arrive at 2 on the dot. Dogs didn’t eat their step mother (which is good but also a shame, if you know what I mean). J is immensely pleased with the COOL chain he got for his flute and I was successful in showing some enthusiasm as well. E was excited about her Lisa Frank lunchbox and I did a fair job of not showing my true feelings about it (that is the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen in my entire life!).

Life is moving along nicely when the phone rings from the dealership. We need a new clock and the road noise is actually a busted wheel bearing. Do I want them fixed, parts are in stock? I started to say can I schedule an appointment, thinking it is 3:30 and how will they ever do that by 5:30? But she says they can definitely go ahead and do it today and she can have the shuttle pick me up at 4:30 and I may have a little wait but it would be done. So, I agree.

I shut down the computer at 4:10 and head out with my next book (Dexter was finished earlier in the day during a lunch break) to wait for the shuttle. Arrive at the dealership at 4:40 and am told they are done and just test driving. At 5:15 I go out to the service bay and ask if my car got lost during the test drive or what??? She says oh it’s done, let me pee and I’ll write up the bill. Ooooooooooook. 5 minutes later I’ve paid a whopping $1200 for the 90,000 mile service, the clock and the wheel bearing and I’m looking for my car which she had said was being pulled up. Well there it was at the end of the bay being vacuumed. The dude had forgotten to do that and the manager sent him back to do it right. (ha, last time we had it serviced, they didn’t vac it either). So I wait and wait. The guy finally finishes and tries to drive through the bay straight to me but realizes there are actual cars there and that won’t work. Soooooooo he backs all the way out and drives up around the outside. I jump in happy to be on the way home. I wonder what time it is and look up to where the nicely installed new clock should be and the clock is ummm dead.

I back up, get out, and march into the service bay to explain that this nice new clock that cost me $130 to have put in isn’t actually ummm working. The nice girl says she’ll grab a technician. Unfortunately the Subaru technicians are gone and all I’ve got is a nice Chrysler tech. He checked the fuses and finds the cigar lighter (really that’s what he called it) is dead. But that’s it and it doesn’t help the clock. So he looks for a screw to remove the clock and realizes the screw he’s just taken out actually removes the top compartment and that’s not helpful. He runs for more tools and comes back and pries it out thinking maybe they got in a hurry and didn’t actually plug it in. No, it’s plugged in. By this time I notice that this clock face is really smudged and looks like it has caramel macchiato on it. I mention that to the guy and he says “hmmm is that what that is?” I said “Yes but wouldn’t that be odd since this is suppose to be a new clock?” “Are you sure they didn’t just order you the part?” I showed him my papers and he said “No, looks like this is a new clock, maybe they just transferred your caramel macchiato smudges for you”. Ha. The guy is nice and funny but by then I am ticked.

I head into the service bay and they want me to bring the car back tomorrow to solve this. Ha, that won’t work, Friday is meet the teacher day. I’m seriously grouchy by then and she says she’ll just order me another new clock and when it comes in she’ll call and they’ll put it in while I watch. Ha, great. I could put the freaking thing in myself I’ve now watched the guy take it out and put it in three times already. Whatever.

I get back in the car and head for home. Happy that at least there is no more noisy back-end but looking at that dead clock and feeling totally defeated. I hate going to the dealer for car repairs. It’s TW’s thing to do that and I’m not doing it anymore, ever again. Well except to get this damn clock that I’ve already paid for and to drop off my nasty customer comment card. I’ll enjoy that part of my next visit.

car, subaru