Our parents and teachers always tell us that we learn the
biggest lessons by making the biggest mistakes. Sometimes I wonder if that’s
just humans trying to rationalize their own idiocy…you know, the whole making
good out of bad, turning lemons to lemonade thing.
But let’s be real, we all know that it’s true. Sometimes you
really do have to mess up pretty badly to learn, but don’t you ever wish there
was another way to learn a good lesson? Well after this weekend this Yes-Girl
is wishing she had said one big NO…
It was a beautiful day in Norman, Oklahoma…well, not really.
It was overcast and chilly but I had just turned in my last paper for the week
and was feeling pretty good!
After my last class I made my routine walk to the parking
garage and hopped in my white Nissan Xterra, Blanche. Despite a broken gas gage
Blanche has never given me any problems.
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| The OU parking garage where it all began.... |
My radio was cranked up to Jerrod Niemann’s new hit Shinin’ On Me and I was feeling good as
I slid out of parking spot and made my way down the garage. But all of a sudden
something went haywire. My steering wheel and pedals locked, my battery light
turned on, and poor baby Blanche sputtered to a stop in the middle of the
parking garage blocking all exiting traffic. Great.
It really did seem like I had had the world’s worst luck
lately. My coffee machine was broken, I was out of money for the month, and now
my precious car was throwing a temper tantrum! I was frazzled.
I managed to pull Blanche into the nearest parking spot and
called my insurance. After wandering around the parking garage like a mad woman
for 20 minutes looking for the clearance of the garage for the towing company
and about 7 calls to USAA on an iPhone with 10% battery, help finally arrived.
The tow truck guy seemed nice enough and helped me fill my
tank up with gas just to make sure Blanche’s dysfunctional gas gage had
deceived me…no luck. So I told him where I wanted it towed.
“Uh, the Firestone on 566 West Main Street, please,” I said.
His face scrunched in disapproval.
“Really? Are ya tryin to pay a fortune to fix her?” He said
pointing to Blanche who was now loaded and secured on the tow truck.
His questioning my request was the first red flag….but I was
completely vulnerable as soon as I remembered that constricting $13.92 in my
checking account..
“No…” I sheepishly responded.
That was my second red flag. Nobody should ever make you
question your judgment when it comes to something like this.
“I’ve got a place that will take care of it for real cheap,
I’ll take ya there.”
He hardly waited for a response before he hopped in his
truck and was on his way to Terry’s Automotive with Blanche trailing behind
him.
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| My worst nightmare! |
You can imagine how the rest of the story goes…When I asked
for a business card they handed me a tie-dye pen with the shop’s phone number
(I’m yelling at myself right now for not backing out then and there…a tie-dye
pen!?) and poor Blanche sat in Terry’s Automotive for 4 days with no diagnosis.
Every time I called to check on the status the answer was always the same:
“We’re workin on it, alright?”
And there’s my third red flag (unfortunately a bit late…)
Who talks to a customer like that? Checking on the status of my vehicle after
four days is NOT an unreasonable request by any means. It was time to take
action.
After another day of back and forth with USAA, the tow truck
company, Firestone, and Terry’s I finally was able to get Blanche towed to the
initial shop that I had wanted her to be assessed at. But it was not without a
heap of stress and one nasty phone conversation with Terry in which he yelled
(and I mean YELLED) at me for being demanding and proceeded to correct me on
the number of days my car had been sitting in his shop. His calculations were
wrong and he defended himself with another unnecessary and unprofessional
rebuttal. Once again I was appalled by the way he treated me as a customer! I
may be short, but NOBODY pushes me around!
As soon as I realized that this Terry character was not
going to be reasoned with I decided to cut my losses, pay him the $82 dollars
(for doing absolutely nothing!) and focus on getting Blanche to Firestone.
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| And my knight in shining armor! |
As soon as Blanche got to Firestone she was diagnosed within
45 minutes and fixed within 2 hours. They were efficient, polite, and very reasonably
priced. I’m happy to say that
Blanche is up and running just as smoothly as she was before her hiccup.
So…this is what my idiocy has taught me:
1.
Listen to your gut…and your insurance
company…ESPECIALLY during a crisis
2.
NEVER let a tow truck driver scam you into going
to his “buddy’s shop” to “take care of it”
3.
NEVER let someone make you feel guilty for
expecting someone to do the job that you are paying them to do
4.
NEVER let somebody work on your car that has a
tie-dye pen for a business card (that falls apart after one use…)
5.
And NEVER take your car to Terry’s Automotive in
Norman, Oklahoma!
All great lessons that I wish I never had to learn, but
that’s just life, right? I suppose all is well that ends well. I got Blanche
back, found a great Firestone for future reference and got a pen that doesn’t
work with Terry’s contact information (which I will NEVER be needing again.)
I guess this yes did teach me some lessons after all and I’d
rather have a broken pen than a broken car…
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