A couple weeks ago I wrote about how I was dreading my annual car inspection. Well, all I can say is it turned out to be a very “interesting” experience.
I made an appointment at the dealership where I’d bought my car 12 years ago, then arrived on the designated morning at 10 AM sharp. The waiting room there had cable TV, Wi-Fi, books, hot coffee, comfy chairs and more, but was I allowed to wait in there? Heck no. The room already was occupied by two people, so I was told I had to socially distance myself and was sent to solitary confinement in the farthest corner of a display room, miles away from civilization. The room was stark, with only a table with a bottle of hand sanitizer sitting on it, two hard chairs, and what looked like a former closet that had been transformed into a Barbie-sized restroom with a sink and a toilet. The only thing missing was a bunk…and prison bars.
I’d noticed a sign that said state inspections were $35, so I allowed myself to fantasize that I just might get away with spending only that much. I hadn’t even gone 2,000 miles since my last inspection, so I figured I really hadn’t had much of an opportunity to wear out anything on my car.
As I sat there and waited, I found myself wishing I had a Smart phone…or a book. My cell phone allows me to do nothing more than make and receive calls, so unless I wanted to entertain myself by dialing random phone numbers or making prank calls (Hello? Is your refrigerator running? Then you’d better go catch it!), I was doomed to experience a terminal case of boredom. But I kept telling myself I wouldn’t be there very long anyway – that my car was going to ace the inspection and I’d be out in a half-hour.
Two hours later, I was beginning to think they’d either forgotten about me or they had found so many things wrong with my car, they’d run out of ink for the print-out. Finally, at 1:00, a service-tech walked in and apologized for the delay. He hesitated before adding, “Well, I could pass your car today and give you a sticker but…”
“But what?” I found myself asking, even though my brain was shouting, “No! You really don’t want to know.”
“Well, your rear brakes are right on the cusp of failing the inspection. I mean, if this were a week from now, I’d have to flunk them.”
Was I really desperate enough, I wondered, to grab my inspection sticker and run, knowing that at any time I could lose my brakes and become intimately acquainted with a tree (pedestrian, telephone pole, squirrel)?
The guy was holding a clipboard, which he set down on the table. The first thing I spotted on the sheet was $385 written at the bottom and circled.
“Is that the price for a brake job?” I asked, glutton for punishment that I was. He said it was, plus $35 for the inspection.
I mentally added the figures and felt as if I might lose my lunch…but fortunately, I hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast over five hours before, so there was nothing in my stomach to lose.
“Can you do the work now, while I’m here?” I asked, mainly because the thought of having to return for another day of solitary confinement appealed to me about as much as getting my leg hair waxed.
He said they’d get right on it.
An hour later, after I’d counted every ceiling tile for about the 20th time, the guy returned. At last, I thought, I could go home – if the circulation in my legs and butt cheeks ever returned.
“Um, we ordered the brakes,” he said, “but the wrong parts were delivered. So one of the guys has personally gone to pick up more parts himself. Sorry for the delay. Do you mind waiting?”
I figured I didn’t have much choice in the matter, so I said it was okay. That was one good thing about wearing a mask. I could answer him pleasantly while my hidden mouth resembled a rabid rottweiler’s.
After another half-hour passed, I had no choice other than to leave my confined area and venture out into civilization. My throat was so dry, it felt as if I’d just eaten a couple of my aunt’s famous sugar cookies (a.k.a sawdust circles). I needed water. I asked a male employee where I might get a bottled water. He directed me to a soda machine…that contained only soda. I asked another male employee, who said he could give me a cup and I could drink some tap water.
“I drink it here and it doesn’t make me sick,” he said, which made me wonder about the history of the water there and why he'd even mentioned not getting sick.
Suddenly a female employee walked over and handed me a bottle of cold Poland Spring water.
“Never ask a male for anything around here!” she said, laughing. She then added, “You want to wait in the waiting room now? There’s no one in there.”
I felt like hugging her, but I kept my social distance.
She not only led me into the waiting room, she handed me the remote control for the TV and asked me if I wanted coffee. The minute I sat on the cushy seat, I felt as if I’d gone to heaven (so did my butt).
Twenty minutes later, the tech tracked me down.
“Bad news,” he said. “The brake drums aren’t right. Sorry to say there’s no more time today, so you’ll have to come back to get the job finished. How about Thursday?”
I had the feeling that my hidden rottweiler mouth had made its way up to my eyes because he suddenly looked afraid of me. He even backed up a few steps.
“I’m really sorry,” he said. “You’ve been here all day, and you’ve been more than patient. I want to make it up to you. How about if we pick up your car and then drop it off when we’re done? You won’t even have to leave your house.”
“It’s a 36-mile round trip,” I said.
“Oh…that’s too far. Then how about if I give you a substantial discount on the brake job?”
“How substantial?” I narrowed my eyes at him.
“Over $100.”
That was pretty substantial.
“When I come back, should I bring a sleeping bag and a cooler full of food?” I asked.
He shook his head. “No, I promise you that you’ll be in and out of here in less than a half-hour.”
So I returned on Thursday and was treated like royalty. And 20 minutes later I was out of there with my new brakes, an inspection sticker and a savings of over $100.
When I told one of my friends about how my bad luck actually had turned out to be pretty good, he laughed.
“Are you kidding me? You still got rooked!” he said. “I just had a brake job done last month and it cost me only $199. And I didn’t have to waste an entire day sitting around there to get it for that price! You should sue them for pain and suffering.”
Boy, oh boy, how to burst a person’s feel-good bubble.
I think I might need to make a couple prank phone-calls
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Sally Breslin is an award-winning humor columnist and the author of “There’s a Tick in my Underwear!” “Heed the Predictor” and “The Common-Sense Approach to Dream Interpretation." Contact her at: sillysally@att.net.
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