I saved up some money in the bank where it's hard for me to withdraw money out of. I deliberately picked the Richland County Bank so that I am unable to take money out unless I make the big trip to see my parents. Through the years, the money I saved up always comes in handy when I purchase gifts during XMAS.
Christmas seemed to have setbacks this year, but Christmases past often have difficulties. In 2006, Maribeth's mom died a few weeks before Christmas, and she often states that XMAS isn't that happy of a time. This December we had 2 problems.
1. Maribeth went to her car and absolutely, positively couldn't move her key. The battery was messed up, the battery cable, ignition, it's wires - all messed up and needing replaced. She had just sunk a very substantial sum of money getting all of her brakes replaced. I was pissed off with Firestone for charging so damn much money on brakes. I want to write a letter to them b/c it's nonsense to gouge the consumer like they did to Maribeth. Then when I was taking my dear father-in-law to dialysis, we passed at least 2 places that had decent deals on fixing brakes.
So why did she go to Firestone?
We have gone to the same Firestone store for years. We have trusted them; they previously earned that trust! Maribeth was shocked when she heard the estimate, and sometimes it's very human for a bad surprise to simply lead to "paralysis". What I mean is the idea that she felt she didn't have options, and the shock prevented her from thinking of other places to go and exercise those options. We trusted Firestone before!!!!!! We don't now, damnit !
When the ignition "fritzed out", she certainly didn't want to go to Firestone and picked "Sal the Handyman" to fix the car. He has 3/4 of the car done after 1 1/2 weeks. The car is able to drive, but not so reliably with this missing part. Sal told her not to drive, and she's smart enough not to take risks doing so. He found the part and the hope is that it will be fixed by the end of the week. Maribeth works her usual New Year's Day shift. The time and a half money certainly will come in handy. I am hoping that I won't be driving her to work as I have a number times during this recent car failure. Other times I walk to the train station (a little over a mile) as she drives my car to work some 20 miles away.
Frankly, I feel bad for her. She has sunk well over $1,000 into the 2005 Suzuki Verona. I truly thank God for my lowly 2000 Chevy Cavalier. It has 109,000 miles on it. I bought the car when it was 4 yrs. old, and it had about 40,000 miles on it (give or take a few thousand). There have been 2 times where the brake lines have leaked but the indicator light has adequately let me know about that in each instance. I bought 2 new tires and the stupid bastards at Firestone didn't follow my instructions to rotate the tires after they gave me the tires. No, they incompetently replaced the old rear tires with the laziness of putting 2 new tires on in the same place. This is yet another reason why I will be writing them a letter of complaint and threatening to withdraw our family's business with them unless they make some very very sweet deals with us in the future. Damn! The money we spent on car maintenance and repairs might have put one of the repair person's child through the 1st semester of jr. college. What kind of nonsense are they practicing at bad Firestone?? Did they not hear that people are suffering from the recession. That includes us especially since I have been ordered to work fewer hours at the firm.
2. Our new toilet that "Sal the Handyman" installed this fall suddenly did not work as a toilet should. So, on what was supposed to be a very Merry Christmas morning, we opened presents early, and I went back to bed. As soon as I experienced the comfort of a nice bed, I hear a shriek, "GET OUT OF BED IMMEDIATELY OR SOONER!!!!!!!!!!"
To our deep chagrin, the bathroom floor flooded with toilet water. Inexplicably, no one had flushed the toilet. We felt terrible because we knew what was coming next. A visit from our unlucky neighbor immediately below us who had our toilet water streaming through her bathroom fan vent.
Maribeth was yanking the water out of the toilet, and I turned the valve off as soon as I saw what was going on. I found items that would soak up the water and stop damage to our neighbors walls. Within minutes, the fiance' to the woman who owns the condo was videotaping the watery mess that was made. Yet, it was a watery mess made very inadvertently.
The following day, Sal and Maribeth took the toilet off to see what the hell was causing all of the problems. There was good news and bad news. They found the culprit 2 plastic forks. The bad news is not having the slightest idea who the hell would put plastic forks in our toilet. The dog? the ever-present Jake, Ted's sidekick? Both ideas were pretty implausible. We took some steps to prevent anything else from falling into that damn toilet.
Oh and of course there were 2 necessary steps to take once the toilet worked well. Sal, had to be paid for working on a Sunday, and he kindly did it without the traditional extra fee you would pay if a plumber worked on a Sunday. Maribeth needed her due also. So, she was patiently listened to as she explained what happens to one's stomach when you smell fecal matter. She was patiently listened to as she repeated the sad consequences of smelling this most foul substance, and she repeated the foul story no fewer than 3 more times.
Hey, you can't be too hard on Maribeth, b/c her ex-husband (the writer of this post) didn't fix the toilet. No, plumbing is not at all my function in life. I am a pre-trial practitioner, a legal researcher, an investigator and a writer. I would have just messed things up anyway. I gave Maribeth one of my XMAS gifts which I received at the law firm. She loves Starbucks, and I gave her the gift car I had received. She'll love drinking a cappucino after doing such a good job fixing the toilet.
Lord knows if the insurance will help us. We know they'll pay for the neighbor's damage. But our bathroom flooring is messed up badly. Let's see if they'll actually give us compensation for our damage in a timely manner.
Stay tuned............
