My cool 'ride'

I haven't posted about this because I didn't know how it was going to turn out, but I have had a cool vehicle to drive this week and thought, since I haven't had anything fun to say because of working all the time this month, I'd post about this.

I took my car to Big 10 back in November, the week before Thanksgiving, to have my oil changed. When I went back to pick it up, I paid, got in my car and left. I thought the driver's door sounded like it didn't close right, but the weather was getting colder and figured it was just because of that. That was the Thursday afternoon before Thanksgiving. I didn't put a lot of thought into it, but I just knew it didn't sound right.

As I was leaving work on Friday, I decided to look and see if I could see anything that would make it sound the way it did. To my HUGE surprise, there was a hole poked in the side of my door at the bottom and the metal down there was all buckled! Well good grief! I am not a confrontational person by any stretch of the imagination, so I had no idea what I was going to do. I drove to my sister's house to pick up some PTO money I had to count that weekend and showed the door to her and told her about it. I asked her if she thought I should go back up to Big 10 and ask about it. Her answer was a VERY HARDY "YES!!!," but I cannot actually type her answer here! :-) They didn't close until 6:00, so I had enough time to get back up there before they closed. As luck would have it, the manager had gone home early and he was the one that was there when I dropped my car off and picked it up and he's the one with whom I always deal. The assistant manager had no idea what was going on about my car, but I showed him the door. He was a bit dumbstruck. He said he used to work in a body shop and he could see that it was buckled. He said he would mention it to the manager when he talked to him that night and for me to call back up there the next morning. Well, I was SICK having to go confront them about it anyway because I could just see them telling me, "No idea what happened, Lady.....Tough luck!" I decided that I wouldn't just call the next morning, that I would go back up there and show the manager what had happened. I got there about 8:20 and he came straight to me and wanted to see the door. I told him what I had thought about it closing different because of cold weather, but he just shook his head like that would never happen. (I'm a girl....I KNOW he knows more about cars than I do, I just had to put my theory out there!) He looked at the door and as I was explaining to him, he acted like he knew what was going on. I said, "Do you KNOW what happened?" He said he did, then he said that when the assistant manager had called him the night before and told him I'd been up there, he knew exactly who had worked on my car and so he hung up and called THAT guy. The guy finally told him that when he had my car up on the rack to change the oil, the driver's door was open and when he brought it down, it hit a table and buckled the bottom of the driver's door! He didn't tell the manager at the time because he'd already had two other instances and had been told that if anything else happened, he was going to be fired. With that being the case, he cut a hole in the side of my door and tried to fix it himself and not tell anyone! I was just glad he admitted it and they could see I was telling the truth....this day and time, you just never know.

SO, I had to go get three estimates....one was $1,283.05, one was $1,343.42 and the other was $1,741.04. I took those back to Big 10, they were sent in to the corporate office, someone there called and talked to the manager at the Big 10 where it happened and talked to the mechanic that did it, then they finally, FINALLY, contacted me about getting it fixed. Of course, they sent me to the place with the lowest estimate, but that is really fine by me because it was the only one whose estimate gave me a NEW door. The other two were used doors, so a new one is great to me! Evidently there's a lot to matching paint colors and stuff to consider too, so it's evidently really quite a job.

Anyway, I dropped it off this past Monday then, at Big 10's expense, have had a rental car this week. As luck would again have it, the Enterprise guy that came and picked me up is the son of a guy I used to work with. I don't know if it's because he knew me or if they try to give you a car montarily comparable to the car being fixed, but he offered me a PT Cruiser or a Jeep Grand Cherokee! I chose the Jeep Grand Cherokee because I want the next vehicle I get to sit higher off the road, so I wanted to see what that would be like. I must say, it's pretty cool. I could never afford a Jeep, but it's nice to drive!

The first car I bought was a Ford EXP, a two seater, that I drove for 12 years! I loved that car. I was just fun. I traded that in and got a blue Honda Civic that I also loved. It had front and back seats AND 4 doors, so after driving a two door two seater for 12 years, that was a great change! I also had that car for 12 years. Then, when my mom and her husband moved to Florida, she had a van and they decided they were going to buy a Toyota Prius, so Doc gave me his Infiniti I30t. This was also the year that I bought my house, so, not being willing to look a gift horse in the mouth, I sold my Civic for $3,000 and paid much of that money toward furniture. That whole thing really was a Godsend. I've enjoyed the Infiniti and will definitely drive it until it won't go anymore, but whatever I get next, I do want to get something that sits higher off the road. I can't stand to get behind SUV's and not be able to see around them. I've posted before about what an impatient driver I am and that doesn't help the situation! I love being in this Jeep and being able to see two cars in front of me! Anyway, here are pictures....as if you haven't seen a Jeep Grand Cherokee before! :-)

I can't post all this good though without posting about God's way of humbling me even in the best of circumstances. There was bit of a hassle between the time I turned in my estimates and when they finally called last week and told me what I needed to do to get this handled. Other than that, it's been smooth but in all honesty, I've thought that I've been pretty cool this week driving this vehicle....(this is where the humbling comes into play).

SO, I am driving to work Thursday morning....on this street that that my subdivision is off of....and I get about two miles up the road....about 3 houses from the main road I'm going to turn on. I see something to the right out of the corner of my eye. I think...."Once I get out of this curve, I need to look and see what that is!" Well, HELLO....it was a DEER that came running right out in front of me! It was running across the yard and passed within feet of the front of me. No kidding, if there had been two of them together, I would have hit one of them. I was like, "Oh my gosh! I need to slow myself down! That would have been BAD in this rental!" So I get on up to the main road to turn...no traffic. I turn, still thinking about how fortunate it was that I didn't hit that deer, how close it was, all that stuff.....I get maybe 500 feet up the road and ANOTHER deer passes just as close in front of me from the other side! Scared me to death! Literally, again, if there had been two, I would have hit one of them! Let me just say that I calmed my big ol' self down and thought all the way to work about how it doesn't matter how big your vehicle is, I was just lucky that nothing happened! Because we both want something higher off the road next time, I had been talking with my friend that I work under all week about how much I LOVE driving this vehicle, how high it sits off the road, how much I LOVE being able to see everything....but I told her when I got to work on Thursday, "Well, I think God was trying to get my attention this morning!"

And I have one thing to say, "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!"

After all, it's only a vehicle....but it is fun to drive! :-)