Forgot - the car.
So, my mom and step-dad made the 45 minute drive from their house to mine to bring me to Firestone. I picked it up and was soooo happy. It sounded great and the fwapping noise was gone. My mom and I went to Bed Bath and Beyond (looking for a cookie cutter) and then we drove to Worcester. We went to Savers (still looking for a cookie cutter) and then to TJ Maxx (got awesome winter boots, hat, scarf, mittens).
We left TJ Maxx and I was driving down the mall exit lane when the malfunction light came on and the car started preparing to stall. I quickly pulled over and turned it off and then on again. It tried really hard to not start but it finally did it. I let it run for about 10 minutes and tried driving again and it stalled again.
I called AAA and they had a tow truck to me in about 15 minutes. My step-dad came to get my mom and me and was about to take us back home (my home - 45 minutes away).
The tow truck driver says to us, “I’m not allowed to drop a car off at a closed repair shop but I’ll make an exception if you make it worth my while.”
Basically, he wanted $5 from us to drop it off at Firestone after hours.
I had a pretty good idea that he was full of shit but my step dad hates driving at night and was looking at an hour and a half total to get me home and then back to his own home so I didn’t want to make him wait for another tow truck driver.
We paid the $5.
When we got home, I told Sweetie what had happened. To say that he’s PISSED would be a massive understatement. He is absolutely livid. I called AAA to ask them if it really is their policy to not allow drivers to deliver to closed repair shops.
The lady that I talked to said that it is but only when the shop doesn’t have a big parking lot with plenty of room, or a key drop box. Firestone has about 25 empty parking spots and a key drop box. There’s no reason why he wouldn’t have been allowed to bring it there. She also said that it completely unacceptable that he wouldn’t do it unless we gave him money. She put a complaint in the system but said that if I want to file a formal complaint against the driver, I need to call customer relations in the morning. The tow truck driver doesn’t work for AAA so she can’t call him and bitch him out but customer relations can take it through the proper channels.
I am completely uninterested in the whole thing. I’m annoyed about the car more than the $5. The car had no engine problems when we dropped it off. It needed shocks, tires, and preventative maintenance. That’s it. Now it stalls. I’m assuming they forgot to hook something back up but why was I able to drive from Auburn to Worcester with 3 stops on the way before it started stalling?
No, these were the ones they were trying out about ten years ago. The peanut butter cups that also had jelly. I saw them in a store and figured I’d give them a try. Like I said it was a mistake. And it wasn’t just because of the jelly (I still think that’s a workable idea) it was the peanut butter and the chocolate also.
phouka, are you trying to make me give a shit about Buffy? Because so far I’ve been able to avoid it and I’m happy that way, I’ll have you know.
Got any fanfic on something else?
goes to youtube in search of Arlo Guthrie… speaking of which, and I realize this should probably go to Café, but can you guys recommend any decent sites for checking out musician’s works, other than youtube and amazon? YT is getting impossible, sometimes you can’t find the freaking actual song for all the parodies.
Good Mornin’ Y’all! Up and caffienatin’. YAWN ‘Tis 39 degrees Amurrkin with a predicted high of 74. Another nice day. I get to spend a considerable amount of it drivin’ around cause I set up a bunch of home visits throughout greater Lee County today. I even set a couple up that are near da cave so I can come home to eat N.O.L.. Smart ain’t I?
shortdrum sorry about the continued vehicle woes. Hope this is sump’n simple.
Fiat glad you’re still amongst the livin’. I assume you are not postin’ as a zombie. :eek:
Now I must needs more caffiene and rumbly tummy wants to be fed. Then, alas, irk purtification must commence. Woe is me.
Good grief, it’s 6:30 and Scruffy hasn’t barked yet. Hope she didn’t die in her sleep… :eek:
I have productive plans for when the sun comes up. I’m going to tidy/organize the garage so I can park the mulcher/vac in there. That means I need to do something about the boxes of crap we brought back form Mom’s 2 months ago, as well as the assorted aquarium stuff that’s piled in one corner. Then I’m going to run the mulcher/vac around the yard to get the latest accumulation of leaves. And if I’m not totally exhausted, I’ll pot up a bunch of plants in my assorted ceramic planters - I’ve got at least 3 downstairs and 2 up here. It’ll be great to get rid of some of the crappy plastic flowerpots I’m using now.
Other than that, nothing exciting on my agenda. My mom gets home from her Hawaii trip today - wonder if she brought us all those cool hula dancers for the dashboard??
Lately it seems to me that AAA and their associated towing companies are just making up whatever rule seems to suit them at the moment. I don’t remember how many times I had my old van towed due to gas leaks and then a month or so ago I get my grandparent’s car towed and they tell me that if it’s a gas leak that they won’t be able to tow it until the tank has been drained. Actually, this does sorta make sense, but then the tow truck driver gets there and he doesn’t mention one word about it and just hauls it up on the flatbed. At another place when my brakes went out in my work van that tow truck driver tells me that technically he shouldn’t tow my vehicle if it is full of stuff which can be seen through the windows. Apparently it might be enough to entice someone to climb up onto the flatbed and try to break in. Mind you, this would have to be while we were driving… :rolleyes:
Anyways, though, yeah, I hope that they can* actually* fix your car this time. You should make them deliver it to you!!!
My whole going to bed early plan didn’t work. Homework reared it’s ugly head. As a matter of fact I’ve got to get back to it again now. At least this is my final day of observations for this semester. Yay!!
Sucky as it may be, it’s entirely possible that something totally unrelated just happened to fail as you were driving around. Or they may not have secured something so that it worked for a little while until it vibrated loose. Or your car may be possessed by evil spirits and you’re doomed. :eek: :eek: :eek:
Hope it’s just a stupid little thing that they’re appropriately apologetic about.
I have car woes too - drove my little pop-pop up to my friend’s house as I pick her up on the way to Fat Club…we got into the car, shut the doors and heard a horrible crunchy thump as the rear windscreen shattered and fell into the back of the car!
So now my car is stranded at her house, parked way back on her drive because it’s safer than being at my place, with a sheet of plastic over the hole where the windscreen used to be. I called the garage this morning, they don’t do that kind of repair so I had to call my insurance company and do it through them.
They have got someone from a local repair place to get new glass and it should be fixed later today. The good news is that I don’t lose my no-claims bonus which is a big thing 'cos I’ve got 20yrs built up and that means my annual insurance cost is not too extortionate, and it means I only have to pay a £70 excess fee for a new bit of tinted heated glass.
I talked to the other guy’s insurance yesterday, and I have arranged for them to inspect and fix my car at 4:00 tomorrow. They will have a rental for me to drive. I’m so glad the guy was a good citizen, and told them the truth so there were no hassles. (So far!)
Sorry about your car issues, shortdrum.
I’m not having too many issues with Charlie the chihuahua. The biggest thing is the fact that the other two little dogs don’t always eat their breakfast when I give it to them. They save it for later sometimes. Charlie wanders over and starts eating their food. I have to holler at him, “No!” and shoo him out of the kitchen. 'Cuz he definitely chows down his own food! Piggy dog. He’s pretty chubby.
The other issue is bedtime. He wants to sleep in bed with us, but when I go to bed the little dogs kinda intimidate him from jumping on the bed. He has to jump on the blanket chest first, and they stand in the way. Obnoxious little f*ckers. Lucy does it, too, somewhat. Oh yeah - he squeals bigtime if you pick him up. Like you’re killing him! I don’t know if it’s fear or pain.
I’ll be taking him to the vet very soon, for shots and stuff. They can check him out. I already gave him some flea/heartworm/parasite stuff.
I hope all you sickies feel better soon.
About 8, I was worried enough about Scruffy to go take her pulse. She was curled up sound asleep on her blanket. I touched her and she looked up, looked around, then went back to sleep. So I hopped in the shower, and wouldn’t you know when I got out and was only partly toweled off, she was up and about. No biggie except that I wasn’t too keen on cleaning up dog pee, so I had to finish drying really fast, throw something on, and take her outside. Idiot dog.
She’s now curled up under the table next to me - asleep again. I’m guessing old age is really kicking her doggie butt - she slept for 11 hours overnight, and after being up less than an hour, it’s nap time again…
I just finished breakfast, and I suppose I should get out into the garage to start working. Well, maybe in a little bit. It’s still pretty chilly out there. Can’t have me getting a chill, can we?
Yup. If you check the page, buried in the BtVS crossovers, there are three Star Wars fanfics - Time for Sorrows, Final Thoughts, and Perchance to Dream.
Also, Summer with January, while technically a BtVS crossover is mainly set in Barbara Hambly’s “A Free Man of Color” series (1830s New Orleans mystery series), and the characters from BtVS universe are my own originals (except for the prologue). But this one’s not finished.
Finished my midterm for history. It was pretty easy. Explain the Indian Caste system and it’s impact on the Indian people. What Ancient Greek aspects of civilization still exist today? Why wasn’t the Roman Empire able to maintain it’s western territory beyond the 6th century. What is, in your opinion, the greatest achievement of mankind prior to 1 C.E.?
On that last one, I say that it’s written language, going all the way back to cave paintings. Sweetie says it’s the wheel. I can accept that it’s the greatest technological achievement but not the greatest overall achievement. Cave paintings and writing tell us what they thought and I think that’s more important. Sweetie says he’s gonna laugh if my professor says he agrees with the wheel. I said, “Do you seriously think that a history professor is going to say that the wheel is more important than history itself?”
Made the formal complaint against the tow truck driver. They’re gonna report it to the owner of the company. Now I’m off to de-skuzz myself and then back to the homework while I wait for Firestone to call. Sweetie’s dad thinks they didn’t tighten the timing belt properly and that it slipped.
They say that while cleaning the engine after the work was done, some water got in a spark plug and caused it to start arcing and stalling when it got hot.
Brrrrrrr the cold front the swept through Colorado yesterday is starting to hit OKC. Lows will be close to freezing tonight. Brrrrr
I suppose it is time given it is November 2nd.
All our network systems went down this morning. Total data black out. Which means a wasted morning and I have to leave in about 15 mins to go to the doctors and then PT this afternoon. Oh well
I have to holler at him, “No!” and shoo him out of the kitchen. 'Cuz he definitely chows down his own food! Piggy dog. He’s pretty chubby.
