The one thing I needed to get right was being on time for a 10:00 AM doctor's appointment in Kittery. There were no glitches. The hour drive was uneventful. I was 15 minutes early. I sat in the lobby and eagerly awaited the upcoming poking, prodding, and bloodletting. I was finished by 11:00 AM.
Because I had been promising myself for over a month to get a haircut, I made an appointment with a barber on the same road. I have never made an appointment for a haircut before. I probably won't ever again. The appointment was for 12 Noon. The barbershop was half a mile from my doctor allowing me to be early twice in one day. I thought about marking the date with an asterisk because even small victories seem fewer and farther between than they used to.
This is when my day turned to shit.
I decided to get some lunch first as I had been fasting for the Doc since the previous night. I hit the drive thru at Mickey D's out on Route 1. I munched on a Quarter Pounder and listened to some music. I was successfully seated in the barbershop waiting room with 1/2 hour to spare ...........
Yeah, that's right, the barbershop had a "waiting room" with 2 kinds of magazines neatly spread out on a honking big coffee table. One row featured Guns, ammo, fishing and hunting mags. Oddly, the other row held an equal number of Wine appreciation periodicals. ..........
Only on the coastal side of the Turnpike would this occur. Out my way in Acton, miles from the coast, there are probably local ordinances banning wine appreciation magazines being allowed out in public spaces. Wearing sweaters smartly draped over shoulders and loosely tied, while not illegal, are seriously frowned upon.
My hair cutter, a bubbly young lady, bumped my appointment for a client who had missed their appointment earlier. My 12 Noon appointment became a 1:00 appointment. That created a smidgen of attitude on my part, but I was civil.
While I cooled my heels waiting for the haircut to happen, I remembered I had been wanting to stop at the Toyota dealer who sold me my Tacoma in 2019. It seems that when a battery dies on one of the newer Toyotas, simply charging it up is not enough. When I started the truck after charging my battery up, several of fancy "perks" I never used or planned to use decided to warn me in no uncertain terms with a constant loop of flashing reminders that they may of been no use to me in my past, they were now , without a doubt, not going to ever work even if I wanted them to. The basic functions of the truck worked fine. The flashing lights irritated me and the online fix was useless. I decided it was dealer time after a dozen attempts to change the outcome of the previous 11 failures to launch.
I called the dealer 20 minutes north just off the Maine Turnpike a few miles. They told me they could work me in at 2:15 PM. It was 1:20 PM. I had almost an hour, but I figured that a Friday in the summer anywhere near the coast could be a challenge to navigate, so I jumped on the turnpike immediately and headed north for maybe a minute before the 3 lanes heading north ground to a halt. Traffic was backed up over 15 miles. I made my car appointment with only minutes to spare. It was around 2:10 PM
And still the real fun had not really begun yet.
Up front, the repair rep, a skinny little long haired fellow with the worst effort of a goatee I had ever encountered, told me it would be $75 to run the basic diagnostic to find the problem.
"The truck only has 8200 miles on it. Shouldn't that be under warranty," I asked.
"No. Sorry, your warranty is only good for 36 months or 30,000 miles for this kind of problem. Your warranty ran out 4 months ago."
Temperature is rising, but I held my tongue and agreed to the $75 charge. They take the truck into the garage and I park my butt inside the dealership at a Wi-Fi desk and begin roaming the World Wide Web on my phone. It is 2:30 PM
After an hour I grow antsy and asked at the service desk for an update.
"Sure thing sir, I will check right now". He disappears through the door to the massive multi-bay repair area.
Around 4:00 PM, he shows back up and tells me the repair rep with the long hair and the worst goatee in New England will be with me soon.
4:30 PM; my repair rep comes back to tell me that they have not found what the problem is yet and it will probably cost me another $300 (2 hours) of diagnostic time to find the solution.
I knew I was close to losing it, but again, I held myself in check. In no uncertain terms I let him know what I thought of the dealership and their scamming ways.I was civil but in his face. I think he now had an inkling of just how pissed I was as I informed him I would not be throwing anymore good money after bad into their scamming pockets.
The waiting room was full of people turning in our direction now. Yeah, I turned some heads, but I had been civil, just in a louder than the usual civil tone that ensured everyone within earshot got an earful.
Repair Rep seemed to shrink in front of me.
"Well sir, I am going back to the garage and tell them you want your truck back without taking advantage of the service suggestions offered up by that first 1/2 hour diagnostic."
Then he disappears back into the deeper, darker parts of the dealership. It was 5:15 PM before I got out of there with my problem still not fixed and now my wallet had a $75 dollar hole in it.
Before I drove the 45 miles home, I called my wife at her office. Good. She was still there. I Suggested that I stop in Biddeford at Firehouse Subs to pick up dinner and meet her at her office for a take out dinner.
The Biddeford Firehouse Subs is nestled in a small cluster of new-ish attached storefronts where the back of the buildings face the road, Rte 111, and the front doors are in the back facing a parking lot hidden from the road. I pull around and I do not see many cars parked. I actually am able to park in front of the sub shop. I can see it is dark, but I get out to read the hastily handwritten sign taped awkwardly to the inside of the door:
"Closed Due to the Sinkhole"
That was all it said. I looked around the almost empty parking lot. No sink hole in sight. Looked into the darkened spaces of the sub shop and saw no sinkhole. .... Hmm
Because my day had been so full of disappointment, I accepted the truth of that sign immediately. Somewhere nearby there was a sink hole and these people were either afraid of it or closed their doors to go rubberneck near its edge. Regardless, the lights were out and nobody was home.
My mouth had had 20 minutes to wrap it's mind around a foot long "Hook n Ladder". And now it, like me was totally dejected, rejected as our shoulders slumped in unison when I gave the doors a token rattle , just to make sure they were not fooling.
Okay, so another change to another Plan B. By now on this day, I was used to the inevitable disappointments, bottle necks and and undeserved happenstances I was forced to deal with. I called my wife and said it was going to be Wendy's, but I would add two small chocolate Frosties.
At Wendy's in South Sanford, the drive thru line is tied up almost back to the road. I was barely able to get off South Main St. and in line. As congested as the line was, going inside would be worse. The drive thru was always faster at that joint.
A few minutes into my wait for the line to perform the stutter movements as each car orders and then moves forward, a Road rage incident unfolded between the car in front of me and the car in front of them. Yes, the idiot two cars up was not keeping a tight formation with the others in line. When he stopped there was always a bus length space between him and the next car. The guy in front of me finally laid on his horn.
A car door was flung open and the space waster got out looking punk ass mean. He began telling the horn honker in front of me how he was going to kick his ass if he honked his horn again. He stood there, hands on hips and a punk-ass scowl on his face.
The door of the car in front of me opened slowly and the biggest man I have seen in a long time extricated himself from his car. He aped the other guy's posture and 30 seconds of what looked like a showdown was about to unfold came to a whimpering conclusion as the space waster slithered back into his vehicle.
Meanwhile, all three of us then moved up quickly in the space created during the stare down. I ordered the grub and headed north on Main St.
I had one more obstacle to overcome. Apparently there was a parade, a celebration of some sort, or Sanford just closed the street in front of Town Hall so young couples with strollers, babies in slings, and old farts using their walkers could strut around in the middle of the street. I never did find out what it was. This added more minutes to the trip to Springvale, I arrived at my wife's office with cold grub and 2 milkshakes instead of 2 Frosties.
My 11 hours of Hell was finally over. Some days it definitely does not pay to get out of bed.
Keep it 'tween the ditches ...................................
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I decided a tune about a bad day was just me wallowing even more in my own self pity. So, here is an interesting cover by Steven' Seagulls of Metallica's, "Nothing Else matters". It is damn good in my opinion. The silly presentations aside, Steven' Seagulls are serious about their music.
Enjoy. As always, louder is better than the alternative.
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