A Cavalcade of Stupidity

This post was going to be nothing but one long fairly unhinged rant about our day. Luckily, we made our way to the Saltgrass Steakhouse a bit ago so I’m feeling all mellow at the moment. Oh, it’s still going to be one long rant about our day, but now I probably won’t use a third of the exclamation points I had intended to fling out there with reckless abandon.

We woke up bright and early this morning in sunny downtown Houston because once again we needed to go into the shop. We were supposed to be there at 08:00 and they were to get us in said shop ‘first thing’ in the morning. We were there at 08:00 but do you think we showed up and went into the shop ‘first thing’ in the morning? Trick question.  Everybody knows ‘first thing’ means noon to a shop service-writer. So the answer is “yes” they did get us right into the shop — at the crack of noon.

Now you may be wondering why noon? I’ll tell you. It’s because we are in HOUSTON as in TEXAS as in THE UNGODLY PITS OF FIERY HELL!! Oh my god I hate Texas so very, very much! (sorry Eddie) Anyway, all the mechanics sat around all morning in their secret “break room” in big old leather massage recliners watching pirated copies of Hookers on the Point. Every once in a while they would send the new guy out to check current weather conditions. When the temp finally hit 238 degrees, they came to get the truck.

Where we set up housekeeping

Now, this isn’t exactly our first rodeo in the truck repair arena, so we were prepared. We whipped out the handy leaving the truck beach bag and settled in for an afternoon of hell. When you’ve got a spastic dog that thinks everyone in a four block radius secretly wants to pet her, and you’re a smoker, and let’s be honest you’re relatively anti-social… well you’re going to end up sitting outside while your truck is in the shop. That’s right, that’s not striped wall-paper behind the chairs we hauled out from the trucker’s lounge — it’s steel siding. Steel siding with random screws poking out of it pointy side out… at about head level. But hey, we had diet coke, extra smokes, food and water for the pup, the heavenly Kindle, and the camera for entertainment. How bad could it be?

I’ll tell you how bad it could be — thanks for asking. About 4:00 in the afternoon, the service-writer guy comes out and tells us that they had to order one of the parts they need so the truck won’t be fixed until tomorrow. So we will have to get a motel. Shit! There was a time when we kinda liked getting motels but that time is long past. Grumbling, I got up and went into the driver’s lounge for the phone book. Started calling. Kept calling. Called even more. Ended up calling about 25 motels. No dice. I think this is about the breakdown of responses I got:

• 53 did not accept pets and didn’t have any rooms
• 2 didn’t accept pets but did have available rooms
• 36 did accept pets but did not have any rooms at all — not even a manger or something similar
• 8 did not accept pets, did not have any rooms available, and thought I sounded kinda shifty over the phone
• 3 didn’t care about the dog, but had no rooms available, however they did invite us to stay at their house if we didn’t mind sharing a room with them and the wife
• 2 didn’t know nothin bout no rooms but was most interested in what kind of underwear I was sporting

Obviously this wasn’t going to work. Damn you, Ike!! Thanks to stupid-assed Hurricane Ike, there wasn’t a room in Houston that we could scrounge. Well they were just going to have to give us our truck back for the night and we would come back in the morning to get it finished up in the shop. That’s all there was to it. We waited until he came back out and told head service-writer guy that and he said, “Nope, can’t do it.” Stace and I just kinda looked at each other dumb-struck. What the hell were we supposed to do? Can’t stay at their shop, can’t find a motel, can’t get our truck back.

"I thought everybody loved me. WTF?!"

We ended up convening a Driver’s Round Table with all the guys sitting around the smoking area to generate ideas for solving this problem. One driver suggested the most obvious solution — call back one of the motels that wasn’t only interested in my underwear, get a room, and sneak Maggie in. This wasn’t such a bad idea at first. Then visions of Maggie having one of her “I think that butterfly is trying to get me” or “Man! I love new room smells” barking fits at 02:45 and us ending up on the street with all our stuff and no cab kinda ruined that picture. Another suggested a kennel but the vet told us a long time ago that we really needed to get her those kennel shots at least three weeks before she stays at a strange kennel. Finally the best idea of the meeting came up. Call Enterprise, rent a van, and sleep in it on the grass outside their chain-link fence. That was looking like the probable solution when the meeting broke up.

We called Those-who-must-not-be-named’s breakdown department trying to get some help. Explained the situation to breakdown guy… basically that we were looking at spending the night on the shoulder of I-10 in Houston if they didn’t do something… and he said he would call us back. He did. Only to tell us there was nothing he could do because it was the shop’s policy to not release the truck until it was finished. He did say he had talked them into allowing us to leave Maggie in the truck over-night while we went to a motel. ARE YOU SHITTING ME? I mean seriously… you want me to leave my dog in a truck that isn’t running — in Houston — over night? Don’t people end up on Animal Planet Cops shows for that kind of thing? Not that that matters as we would never even consider leaving the dog alone in a sweltering truck under any circumstances. Period.

We called Uriah to explain the situation to him and see if he could give us any help. He mouthed some platitudes, blathered about being 100% behind us, talked about all the injustices of the world, and basically did nothing. As usual.

Finally, Stace talked to the head service-writer dude and asked if we couldn’t work something out. She explained quite clearly that we wouldn’t leave the dog, couldn’t find a motel room, and were quite seriously looking at spending the night in the grass right outside their chain-link fence. He said he would try to help us out. So he comes back a while later and says they will finish up what they were doing right then to the truck and charge they-who-must-not-be-named for what they had already done. Then we could take the truck to a truck stop and come back in the morning to finish up. (insert sounds of heavenly angels here)

All we had to do was wait for our breakdown department to give them a PO for the already finished work. So we waited… and we waited… and he sat on hold with breakdown… and he sat on hold… and I sat on hold with breakdown… and it was creeping up on 7:30 which was closing time… nothing… we were going to end up on the grass after all. I called our night dispatch to see if he could help me with breakdown… explained the extreme urgency of the situation and he said he would email someone in breakdown… Seriously, dude?! We’re going to be out on our asses on the street in like 20 minutes and you’re going to e-mail breakdown??!! What… getting a letter there by pony express just seems too proactive for you?? E-mail breakdown! I happen to know his desk is about 100 yards away from the breakdown department. Asshole!

It was now 7:24… and Stace’s massive giant brain finally kicked into high gear — we went in to service-writer dude and asked him if we could cover the charges with a personal credit card. You know how when you rent a car and you’re going to pay cash but they require a card in case you don’t pay? Brilliant!! Way to go Stace!! He said, “Nope, can’t do it.”  Feel free to insert your own visions of my brain melting down then exploding here. Gussy it up a little as it was really quite a severe mental reaction. Picture the stunned horror you felt the first time you really thought about the fact that your parents had sex.

A couple minutes later… just as we were thinking about making a Thelma and Louise break-for-it, service-writer dude comes out — at 7:28 — and says he called his boss at home and if we would be willing to leave a personal credit card with them we could go. (sound of angels again but louder this time)

I was flinging cards at him almost before he finished the sentence. I offered him credit cards, library cards, phone calling card, Sam’s card, blood donor card, coupon for one hot steamy night of whatever-you-want sex… and had the truck in gear before he could change his mind.

We were off the lot and hunting for the steakhouse in about 20 seconds. The worst part of the whole story is that we have to be there at 08:00 in the morning to start it all over again.