Thursday, November 9, 2017

Story of the Day 10/ 18/ 2017 - The Saga of the car - part 2




I was at home, sitting at the computer and calling stores to find out where I could get a new battery put into Aaron's key fob.
Auto Zone. And they would do it for me, with a smile.

But, before I even had my purse in hand, the phone rang.
it was Aaron. he is in the parking lot at the dentist's office, and the car alarm is blaring. He turns it off, but wants to know what to do.
He doesn't want to sit down in the dentist's chair, and then have the car alarm go off , again.
I tell him that he needs to go into the dentist's office , that the world will ignore the car alarm for 15 minutes.
But he decides that he will leave the car door slightly ajar, to ward off the bad car-alarm fairy.

He also wants me to hurry and meet him at the dentist's to trade cars.
He is mortified that the car alarm will keep going off while he is working his shift at the movie theater.

I tell him, "No!"
Not because I have something against the patrons of the movie theater, but because it will take me to long to get to the dentist's office, and Aaron will end up late to work.
I tell him that I will meet him at the parking lot of the movie theater, before his shift, to trade cars.

Twenty-five minutes later, we trade cars and I take the noisy vehicle, which is being quiet, at the moment, and drop it off at John's.

John is our wonderful auto mechanic. He is wonderful for several reasons.
First , he is nearby.
This is important when you need your car towed from your driveway. It is also important , if you want your neighbor to give you a lift to go pick up your car, or from leaving it to be repaired.
Second, he is honest. He will tell you , if he can't figure something out. He will also tell you , if something is not worth repairing.
And, third , he stands by his repairs.

I should also add that he is pleasant, but that is really just a bonus item.

I drop the car off, even though John's is closed ( he is closed on Sundays and Mondays), on the street just north of his lost ( which is gated and locked) and leave the car doors unlocked and the key under the same mat that AAA had used to hide it , previously.
I am also nice enough to let John know exactly where the car and the key are. I also explain ( he does tend to answer his cell phone, when he is closed) what the car is doing to misbehave.

We are still sans one car. We are still not sure what is wrong with the car.
We are , however, sure where the car is, where the key is; and, at least, it is with someone we know will do a good job.

I am , in the meanwhile, fervently hoping that there is no Part 3 to the Saga of the Car.

Wednesday, October 18, 2017

Story of the Day- October 16, 2017- The Saga of the Car part 2



So, it is Monday morning, and we are back to the saga of the car battery and AAA.

My son called AAA, at 7:35, this morning, to arrange to have them come out and check his battery and replace it, if needed. And I had arranged to pick him up, at 7:40, so that we could drive over to the place they had towed the car to, and that would be open at 8.

By the time I arrived to get Aaron, AAA had called him to let him know that they would be where his car was, in about 15 minutes.
So, we headed out , per the map quest instructions...and proceeded to get lost.
The place to which they had towed the car was the wrong direction and a block past the street address. I am not joking.

I followed Aaron into the business and the receptionist told me that no one can find them.
We beat the beat the AAA truck there by about ten minutes, despite our delay. That is because he was also having trouble finding them.

Aaron asked the woman for the keys to his car and she reacted in a very confused manner.
He explained that the car had been towed to them, on Sunday, and that the key had been put in the drop box. He explained that his car was the 2009 Honda in their parking lot.
This didn’t seem to help .
You see, they do not have a drop box.

She suggested that we check and see if any of the neighboring businesses had a drop box where the key could have been left, by mistake….but there were none by the nearby businesses.

While we have an extra key for the car, I had left it at home.
Why bring it, if AAA insisted that we had to wait until this business opened up, and needed to get the key that had been left with them, anyhow?
Except that it hadn't been.

My son goes out to check his car, and it is unlocked.
He then checks the glove compartment, the coin compartment and the compartment between the seats, but there is no key.
There is also no key in the car’s trunk.

He does not have the number for the place that towed him.
Yes, he had called them on his phone, yesterday, to get the name and address to where they had towed his car, but he had deleted the call history, since then.
This is the same son who leaves his bank statements and Facebook account open on my computer, all the time……

The woman from the business ( we had gone back inside for the warmth and the quiet- as this was near a busy road) told him that , even if he deleted it, he can retrieve it from the net...which produced a very blank look from both of us.

I then had to explain to her that we are dinosaurs and do not have smart phones.

Also, I am wondering why my son deletes his call history.......but that is for another story.

Shortly after this, the AAA truck arrived. Don, the very nice older man driving the truck, said that eh had no way to figure out who had towed the car, but said he would look for the key.

A few minutes later, he holds it up. He found it under one of the floor mats.

Don then tests the battery. It is still under warranty. That is good.
But it is not the problem. It seems to be in fine shape. He then asks Aaron what the problem was. Aaron explains it, and Don says that it sounds like it might be the battery in the key fob.
We thank him, and drive home, where Aaron gets the other key.Then Don from AAA arrived. We explained the missing key problem, and asked if he could find out the number for the towing service that AAA had called. Instead, he starts going through the car and locates the key under the floor mat.

Great. So they left it unlocked and with the key in it, although well hidden- at least from us.

Turns out, the car's battery ( which I bought from AAA- since this is the car I drove until we passed it down to Aaron) was installed by AAA and under warranty...
but it isn't the problem.
Don said it is probably the battery in the key fob, and we are going to stop and home, so Aaron can get the other fob, before going to his dental appointment and then to work.

And I will take this one to have the battery changed.

Sigh.

Tuesday, October 17, 2017

Story of the Day 10/15/2017




I have two sons. One is deaf and the other isn't.
Last night, which would have been Saturday night, but , as it was past midnight, it was Sunday , my son was disturbed, four times, by an alarm. Not his smoke detector, which has been in a state of disrepair for close to a month (and about which he has repeatedly notified his apartment complex's office), but his car alarm. Obviously , it is rather loud alarm, since he could hear it from his apartment.

Let me get back to the fact that I have two sons. The one in this story is the DEAF one.
So, maybe , this is more statement about the quality of the walls and the windows in his apartment complex....the same apartment complex that has left him with a broken smoke detector in his apartment.....


He told this to my husband, this morning ( Sarah and I were not home), and my husband had the exact same response that I did, when he repeated it to me., "What car alarm?"
My son drives our old 2009 Honda Civic. It never had a car alarm, while we had it; and we couldn't imagine him, in his very subsistence-style of living, having one installed in his car .

My husband explained that it was the car alarm that goes off when you push the panic button.
Oh, that car alarm.
No wonder he heard it.

And, each time, he pressed the button on the fob, and the alarm stopped.
But, at 2 AM, having done this for the 4th time, he decided to call AAA.

He described the problem to the woman from AAA, on the phone, and she told him that it was probably because of a low car battery; and that he would need to have his car towed to a place that could install a battery for him.

She asked him , if he had a place he preferred. He didn't, so, the AAA truck towed him to a place that is several miles away. And for which he had to pay the additional towing mileage.

When my son called my husband, this morning,- not at 2:300AM, when the car was towed, but after 8 AM, he explained that he was going to need to come over to figure out exactly where the car was ( to Google the address), and a ride to go get the car.

My daughter drove over and picked him up from his apartment, and he spent several minutes realizing that he had both the name of the place, as he remembered it, and the address wrong.
Fortunately, he had the receipt for the towing, and he called that place.

Turns out, they towed him to a place that isn't open on Sunday.
So much for getting his battery replaced and having his car to get to work, tomorrow.

At this point, my son's obnoxious mother suggested that he call AAA, and ask them to meet us where the car had been left, and have AAA change the battery. Afterall, the last few times, Ive had batteries die, AAA came out and changed them for us...making me wonder why they had towed him, last night...especially since the place they picked meant he had to pay a towing charge.....
But, as it turns out, they do not change batteries until after 6 AM, so instead of explaining that to him, as an option, last night, they towed his car to a place ( for a fee) that will not be open , until tomorrow.

And, they will not meet us there to change his car's battery,; not today, at any rate.
You see, they will not make another call out for him, for another 24 hours, because they dropped it at a repair place that is not open ( they informed him that they put the key in the drop box)...even though they dropped it ( the place that they picked) at place that is not open on Sundays.
They will not even do it for us, knowing that my son has ( not in his car, but in his possession) both the title to the car, and the extra key.

And I am ....not feeling very happy with AAA .

Tuesday, July 4, 2017

Story of the Day 6/ 28/ 2017




My son and I got to spend some quality time together, today. In our family, quality time can be translated as " time in the car."

Aaron's car had those nasty airbags that can explode with shrapnel, so , it was included in round 3 or 4 or 16 of the recalls; and today was the day for his car's airbags to be replaced. As a result, I got to drive him home, and then back to the dealership, today. Hey, it beats sitting there and watching really bad, uncaptioned TV for 4 hours.

On the way back to pick up his car, this afternoon, Aaron mentions that a friend of his told him that Gal Gadot, the actress playing Wonder Woman in the new movie, has a slight Israeli accent; and , as a result, the director had all of the actresses playing the roles of Amazons speak with similar Israeli accents. According to this friend, these fake accents were truly hideous.

My son, who works at a movie theater and has seen the film upwards of a dozen times, although, mostly in parts, told me that he had never noticed that she had any accent.

I managed to not choke for laughing; and I advised that the next time someone mentions it, he should respond that he hadn't noticed the subtleties of the accents, due to being deaf.