what in the sam hill...?

Forty-six days ago, I was in an accident. As of today, we still don't have the car back from the repair shop. Every three days, I call to make sure it's ready, and they apologize, tell me there's been a delay, and that it will be ready in three days. So, three days later, I call to make sure it's ready... . Saturday, I went to the shop in person without any notice. I walked into the garage and under our car (not a good sign, it was on the lift). The guy said "Monday. It'll definitely be done on Monday." Today (Monday), I pulled out my secret weapon -- Ted.

First, I asked him to call them around noon to verify that the car would be ready and find out a definite time we could pick it up. They told him 5:00pm. So, at 4:30pm, I picked up Ted from work, we drove to the shop, and at 5:04pm, walked in the door. It would be kind of funny if we walked under the car on the lift, like I did Saturday, but in fact, it was sitting in a different corner (and on the floor) of the garage. As we walked back toward the office, the guy appeared and said, "I'm afraid I have some terrible news... the part never came in today."

And I might as well have yanked a cork out of Ted's head. He went bananas on the guy -- in a non-psychotic way -- but with much emphasis and volume. He pointed out the obvious like "you keeping telling us this thing is going to be ready," and "when I called at noon today, you said we could pick it up at 5:00pm tonight," and "you could have picked up the phone and called this afternoon so we didn't make the trip here," and "the car has been here for 34 days... ."

34 days.

That doesn't include the 12 days it sat in storage while the insurance company didn't get around to appraising it. We've made two car payments (and insurance payments) on the thing in the time we haven't had that car. Our neighbor is so confident that we are now a one-car family that she is basically parking her car in our space.

I can't talk about this anymore. Besides, my throat is sore, and I'm starting to lose my voice.