A Bad Day
9:00am
At work, I open a newly-refilled prescription of pain pills
(for recent throat surgery) to discover that the pills in this bottle are
different in size, shape, and identifying letters.
9:01am
Phone pharmacy (Rite Aid), to find
out that they had indeed given me the wrong medication, and they ask me to
bring it back in. As I am at work, I hunt around and find some regular Tylenol.
12:30pm
Receive phone call from wife, who is in her broken down car
at a rest stop on I-75 between Bay City and Saginaw. She has both of our sons
with her (4 months, and 4 years). I leave work to assist.
12:50pm
Arrive at rest stop. Wife, due to being flustered by
barely-working car, has parked in the “truck” side instead of the “car” side.
She says that a giant tractor-trailer
pulled up behind her and honked until she told the brute her car was broken. So
he stopped honking, and just parked behind her. I attempt to jump-start the
car. The noise of the surrounding semis idling (does it really take that much
work to shut these down and start them up again?) is of such intensity that I
cannot hear if the car is starting, but must watch the timid flicker of the
dash lights to know that it is not even turning over.
12:55pm
Discard first set of cheap jumper cables from wife's car, get slightly less
cheap set out of my trunk. Several truckers and RV-drivers attempt to help, but
succeed only in pinching everything under the hood into sharp little metal
furrows. Perhaps the brand name of the jumper cables should have tipped me off:
Death-Pinch Yet Slippy Non-Conductors ™. Still won’t turn over, even after we
let it sit for a while whilst hooked up.
1:10pm
Send wife and kids packing in my car to finish errands,
while I phone the motor club for a tow.
11 hours later (1:30 pm, actually)
Tow truck arrives, and he hooks on his Meaty Claws of
Superconductance ™ (note to self: buy those
jumper cables), and in the time it takes to fill out the paperwork (about two
weeks), I've enough electricity to start the car, as judged by happy dash
lights, and activity from tailpipe (the car, not the tow-truck driver). The tow
truck driver’s a friendly fellow, and follows me back to Bay City, letting me
use the sacred Emergency Vehicles Only passage from southbound to northbound
I-75 (flashing lights and all). I notice looks of admiration from
one-direction-only drivers. Car runs poorly, but makes it.
2:00pm
Arrive at Gary’s All-Car Care, my usual mechanic. The throw
on a tester (my fourth set of clampy things so far in the day, I’m gonna have
some bad dreams), and announce that the alternator is bad. Cost: $258, will be done in a couple of
hours. I walk home, having no car, nor even enough money for public
transportation. On my way I kill a grizzly bear, fashion a wide-brim hat out of
tumbleweeds, and learn to drink water from a cactus. Just kidding, it only
takes me 15 minutes.
2:30pm
Walk in front door to find phone ringing. Publisher’s
Clearinghouse Sweepstakes Winner Notification Board? Nope. Wife. My car has broken down in Saginaw. In the middle lane of
Tittabawassee Road in the heart of the shopping district. She called the motor
club again, and waited an hour in that lane. With giant hunks of screaming
metal whizzing by constantly. Tittabawassee Road is not for the faint of heart.
In fact, Tittabawassee actually means “Long strip of
land where many die”. It was not specified whether that was from an accident,
or from old age while waiting to make a left. And of course our four month old
decided it was a jolly time to move his bowels, and ask for a snack. Nobody
stopped to help her for the first 50 minutes, a scathing indictment of our
society, or else maybe there was a really good sale at Circuit City. When the
wrecker finally arrived, it took her, having no idea where to go, to the
Goodyear tire and repair shop a few blocks down, and never was there a more
wretched hive of scum and villainy. Anyway, she says frantically “you've got to come pick me up, I’m out of
formula and diapers!” (she had packed for only a one hour tour, not foreseeing
she’d end up trying to build a rescue beacon out of a coconut). I assured her I
would be there as soon as possible, reviewing our fridge door list of People To Call and obtaining from it
the much, much shorter list of People You Can Call In An Emergency. None of
them are home. As I stand there, imagining Karen using old oily garage rags as
a makeshift diaper for Ben while feeding him a creamer and water paste, my
mother-in-law drops in for a visit. Yes Pat! I briefly explain the situation,
and we’re off. She uses the excuse to drive like a coke addict with diarrhea.
2:50pm
The Goodyear garage guys inform me that I need a new
alternator. I should have ordered some in bulk. They want $260-some dollars to
do the job, plus they say that I need a new battery as well, as the old one has been
discharged too greatly to be reliable. Another $70. I’m surprised they don’t
also say I need to have the air in my tires rotated. I ask them if I can think
it over, and they say I can leave the car there for 24 hours. I've so far only
racked up $17.50 in evaluation charges. We head home, and I get dropped off at
the garage where the wife’s car is now fixed and purring like a big white V-6
kitten. I price out the alternator job for my car, and even with $45 in towing
to get it from there to hear, I’d still save $50, and feel a lot better about
who did the job. I arrange that (by asking my garage to arrange the tow), and
drive the wife's car home. I immediately call Goodyear, and tell them my car
will be picked up within the hour, and as such I’d like to settle up for the
$17.50 over the phone. They take my credit card number and promise to run it
through.
3:45pm
I decide to take care of the medication issue, so I drive
over to the drugstore (Rite Aid on Midland Street, Bay City, MI). They have my
actual medication ready, and just switch it like nothing was wrong. I comment
(very politely, that being my nature) that I hoped this sort of thing wouldn't
happen again, and the pharmacist completely
blows me off, actually saying something along the lines of “everyone makes
mistakes” as I am walking away. I stop short, bedazzled by this lack of
concern. I step back (still very polite) and talk to him about the danger of
what just happened, and the broken trust between pharmacy and client, and how
it would seem that in such an important role there would be safeguards in place
to prevent “everyone making a mistake” from turning into a fatality. He said
that is usually the case, but that on Sundays, when I had the refill done,
there was no one to perform the backup verification. He was obviously very
bored with his job, and with the rest of the human race in general. I informed
him that it wouldn't be a problem in the future, as I would never buy anything
from there again. I didn't see him shrug, but I knew he was thinking one. On
the way out I calmly detailed the entire scenario to the manager on duty, who
either cared deeply or was a good actress.
4:00pm
Arrive home to discover that Goodyear had called back
because my charge was rejected. I called the bank, who referred me to the fraud
detection company because there was a stop flag on my account, and they said it
was because the Goodyear people swiped my card 4 times (for 2 different amounts
varying by 20 cents)(??!!), and this set of an automated process of fraud-stoppage
that locks the account until someone tells the computer to release the
choke hold. I call Goodyear back, to find out they won’t release my car until I
pay that massive $17.50, so the tow truck
driver from my garage takes off without my car.
4:05pm
Drive back to
Saginaw to pay the $17.50 and wave to my car. I act cheerful and thankful to
the staff so they won't punk my car, and it is the hardest front I've ever put
up. So many nice pointy things within reach. I have to force them to take my
car key so the doors can be locked overnight (note to self: be sure to look
for valuables in unlocked cars at service stations after hours).
5:00 pm
Come back home and call the tow truck place and set up
another attempt tomorrow. Have to tell
them a ridiculous amount of the day’s story just so I won’t seem like a loon
(and it happens anyway).
5:05 pm
Consider taking a double dose of pain med to stop the
twitching in my eye and the thoughts of weaponry, but am unsure if the
prescription is now a pain med, or, say, menopause hormones, and decide to hold
off.
The End (and all true).
