Holy crap! It was a Monday.

 

So, for like a week - maybe more- maybe a lot more - I had the feeling, whenever I opened the drawer which holds my placemats and napkins or the cupboard below where the pots and pans and housed, that I was smelling something dead.  I couldn't see anything and on Sunday I took EVERYTHING out of both places and found NOTHING.  Weird.  

Since it was not Monday and Kevin was visiting, I thought I would try once again to use the dishwasher.  My cousin Steve and I had loaded it up on Poultry Days in June to find that soon after the cycle commences the dishwasher displayed an error message, started flashing blue lights, and dinging quietly but persistently.  As suggested in the guide, we cleaned the filters (which - for the record - I had cleaned thoroughly at a time approximate to my last use of the dishwasher months previously.  Turning off the light and bell - which with enough time starts to make you feel like you are living in a Poe story - required a trip to the basement to turn off the circuit - an experience that fits right into that Poe narrative.  You, dear reader, are smart enough to guess where this is headed - but you are only partly correct.  There was nothing dead in the dishwasher.  The bottom of the unit, however, was filled with water and from that stagnant bog came the odor.  I pulled out the filters again.  They were still clean.  No surprise.  It hadn't been used since that time it wasn't in June.  Turning the dishwasher ON resulted in the same ERROR.  What was different?  Kevin was kind enough to go to the basement and I called the plumber and the dishwasher repair people.  (For the record, the plumber's receptionist thought it wasn't a plumber problem and the repair person will be out on the 10th.  At that time, I'm willing to put money on this, they will bill me $100 to tell me to call the plumber.  Again.)

Oh, but Ann, is this really such a Monday? It is gross, mind you, and I'm a bit disappointed in learning how long you'll let something rot before getting actively involved in finding it... 

WAIT.  That was before noon.

At noon I drove to the clinic for a birthday lunch for AJ and to celebrate Dr F's last day at the clinic.  At that time, I also had to beg off working on Thursday (3rd) because (though I didn't report this to you) I had just made (yes, Monday morning) an appointment at the CP clinic in Columbus for Zupe and those appointments are super hard to get.  So, when the nurse offered me Thursday AND I was already going to Columbus Thursday afternoon to see Neurology, I said YES! forgetting all about that I work on Thursday mornings and 8AM was Thursday morning.

After lunch I got into my car, put it into reverse and BOOM I get an error "Shift System Fault".  I CAN shift from Reverse into Drive....if I turn off my car first.  I get home.  I repeat this series of actions and get the same error.  So, I cancel our Monday appointment in Greenville.  I call the Ford Garage to see if I can get my car seen/repaired by Thursday to make that appointment.  They "aren't even sure they can look at it by Thursday".   And, "No, we don't have a loaner car for you."   I bike uptown to talk to my insurance people because I need to talk with someone.  They tell me I am covered for free towing and maybe Enterprise Car Rental would deliver a car to Ford.  

I bike home and call Enterprise - after struggling to not figure out how to arrange a rental on my phone.  The number rings.  Their AI picks up and tells me there is a wait.  Their AI later tells me they are transferring my call to a different office.  Their AI tells me I am valuable.  Their AI THEN tells me that I will need to call back. Goodbye.  Repeat.  After Enterprise hangs up on me for the third time, I pull out my laptop and manage to reserve a car.  Pick up Wednesday.  Return Friday.  (I might have preferred to return Saturday so we could go to speech on Friday, but that was not an option.  If I didn't return on Friday, I couldn't return until TUESDAY.  That was crazy.)

I call Ford and ask if it would be safe to drive my car to Greenville.  The person I speak with is not a service engineer and she could not advise me.  Nor could she enquire of a service engineer.

I go ahead and call for the tow truck.

I call Ford and ask if they could deliver my car back to me when they are finished with it as I will have no way of traveling the 15 miles to their garage.  They tell me they can.

But they don't know when they will look at the car.

Still, I'm trusting that somehow I will get to Greenville to pick up the rental car on Wednesday and everything will work out.

Then, I burn the frozen pizza I was fixing for supper.

Addendum:

1. My co-worker took me to pick up the car on Wednesday

2. The car was a totally cool Sonata with a license plate that ended in the alphabetic sequence AKD.

3. My insurance agent told me he would pick me up at Enterprise on Friday - I had never considered how I was going to get home without a car.

4. Amazon delivered the bike pump I ordered on the weekend so I could inflate my bike tires for going to work Tuesday and Wednesday.

5.  I got notification while at the doctor's appointment that my car was repaired for $333 to which they could apply my Ford Cash of $5, if I so desired.

6.  Ford arranged to deliver my car TO Enterprise on Friday.

7.  That $300+ car repair bill?  Parts totaled $4.26.  The rest was labor. And taxes.

8.  There was NO ONE at Enterprise when I dropped off my car on Friday.  After leaving the car and dropping the key in the night return (at 10 AM), I circled back to make a video of the car to demonstrated it was undamaged when I returned it.  All this was weird but not as infuriating as it was for the young woman who had been waiting there for an hour to PICK UP a car from them.  (While I would never recommend Enterprise, they are the only option here in Darke County - so there is a chance I will use them again.)