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Wish I Hadn't Given A Hoot
2006-09-01, 10:16 a.m.

Here I am after dropping off the face of the earth, and I have so much to share. Instead, I will tell you about last night.

The car just started growling at me...yes, �growl�. Onomatopoeia. It drives fine, handles great, but veer right, and the left front wheel makes it clear it�s NOT happy. Because we bought our tires at the Mart of Wal, Hubby and I took the car there yesterday evening to have the tires rotated. Noise ceases or migrates = problem tire. Growling continues = wheel bearing. Okey fine.

We arrived at our 24/7 Mart of Wal at 7:45 and had a mostly one-sided conversation with the tire and lube guy that we can NOT drop off the car and leave it, if they have time to look at it tonight great but if not we�ll have to come another day, here�s our cell phone number, please call when you�re done or if you notice any other problems while it�s on the rack, etc. He said they could get to it in about 45 minutes, no problem, they�ll call right away, they�ll have it ready in just a bit, blather blather. Since even the scrawny tire and lube guy was looking like a tasty morsel by that time, Hubby and I decided to mosey across the parking lot to one of the restaurants. We settled on a place we�d never been before and told the guy where we�d be.

Let�s just say they�re more famous for their girls than their food, with justification. The girls were the only thing good about the place.

I am not a fan of tv�s in restaurants, especially if there are 12 sets, one is tuned to the Speed network and all the others are showing football.
1. It�s THURSDAY. Nobody plays on Thursdays. Who in heck wants to watch 11 different reruns of a football game?
2. If you are of hearing, �football� and �closed captioning� should not be used in the same sentence.

Yes, they do have a true, observed non-smoking section. Pick up your table, haul it to the furthest corner of the parking lot, and pray it doesn�t rain.

I searched the menu in vain for anything that wasn�t grease, deep fried grease, grease on a bun, or grease with a side of grease. I settled for grease on a greased bun, while Hubby ordered their �famous� grease with hot sauce and a side of blue cheese dressing. The side of blue cheese dressing came in one of those little cups you get 6 for $2 at Kroger, but the server WAS nice enough to peel back the foil before handing it to Hubby. Now that�s class. As far as the quality of the food, it can be duplicated at home for mere pennies. Open a can of Crisco, sprinkle profusely with Texas Pete, and employ a spoon. Voila!

The girls were sweet and polite and good servers, but I have a lot more to �hoot� about than the lot of �em put together. I didn�t think most men went in there with visions of walking 2x4's. Come to think of it, I have seen knots on a 2x4 at Home Depot that would have put at least one girl to shame. I should have handed out bandaids for those mosquito bites.

We were 3/4 of the way through hitting the second highest score on 80's and 90's trivia (apparently a bigger draw on Thursdays than closed-captioned football reruns, fancy that) before our deep-fried lard food arrived. These were deep and philosophical questions like �Who is the youngest Chipmunk: Alvin, Simon, or Theodore?� Yet most of the troglodytes in there...huge loud babbling clots of them, 8 glommed around a table for 4...could not put their three collective brain cells together to get more than one question right out of 10. The Chipmunks posed one of the more difficult questions. It wasn�t brain surgery.
Maybe their circuits were clogged by the wonders of hydrogenated oils, rendering neurons sluggish and unresponsive. My brain remained functional, but my digestive tract began to stage a revolt.

We clawed our way through the thicket of unintelligible 100db conversations and silent sporting events and walked back to Maul Mart tire and lube section to see if they were finished with our car. They were finished all right. Not to mention, closed.
Locked.
Along with our keys.

I was NOT happy.

Fortunately I had my set of keys so we wouldn�t be stranded, but we couldn�t simply take the car. We had no idea what had been done (if anything), if we owed any money (rotation and alignment is free), and of course upon opening this morning they would have immediately reported the car as stolen. Time to find a manager.

For some odd reason, Hubby refuses to be within a country mile of me in public when I am peeved. He waited outside. I had no problem with the vast majority of customers, if not seeing me, most definitely HEARING me. I had to traverse half the store to find the assistant manager when they finally got around to calling him for me. But once found, he produced the keys out of thin air along with the receipt showing rotation and alignment and no charge. AFTER telling me that the tire and lube part closed at 8pm, 15 minutes after we dropped off the car and held our scintillating conversation with their employee. I quite politely told him that IT WOULD BE NICE if customers were informed of such, instead of being told �we�ll get to look at it in about 45 minutes�,15 minutes before closing time. Do the math.
I believe I used phrases like �WE MADE IT ABUNDANTLY CLEAR THAT WE COULD NOT DROP OFF THE CAR AND LEAVE IT OVERNIGHT�, complete with the Ethel-Merman-hand-slapping a la �It�s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World� for emphasis. Emphasis noted. Car procured.

It growled at us all the way home.

This morning Hubby told me to take it by the shop to have them take a look at it. Just call the Gurus and ask them to give me a ride home and later take me back to the shop to pick it up. He has meetings out-of-town today so I cannot drop him off at work and have the truck. No problem.

Five minutes later the Gurus pulled up at our house with a burnt-out clutch, needing us to follow them to the shop and give them a ride home.

*sigh*

As of right now we�re playing round robin vehicles. The Gurumobile is in the shop and should have a new clutch noonish. I will take them to get it, leave my grumpy growly car, and they will play taxi service after that. Meanwhile I can go nowhere, because when disintegrating wheel bearings lock up while you are in transit, the wheel tends to come off. I would imagine that�s not real pleasant.

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