Tag Archives: AAA

March 7, 2010 · 5:39 pm

Bad Carma and the Three Dog Night

No, not a typo!

“When the mechanical-technological things in our life break down , it is not a personal attack on us. It is just the nature of the mechanical-material world.”

This hangs over my desk. I don’t know who said it but it sounds kind of Eckhart Tolle-ish to me. Nonetheless, it helps me cope.

Carma, you ask? Yeh, well first Gary’s car decided to overheat on the way home Friday night. He got towed. For those who remember the last AAA debacle you will be happy to hear he called them without hesitation this time.

And then the tow truck broke down in front of our house (poor guy got dragged into our bad carma – I know, too corny to say twice, sorry).

Gary  had a hose replaced on Saturday. Well not Gary, the car, you will be happy to know his hose is fine. (you see, things could be much worse).

And then the car overheated again. (fixed, um, think not).

Then the oil pressure somethingorother light in Danny’s car went on.

Ok, that would be two cars down, going to the shop first thing Monday morning.

Now on to the dogs. When things suck you can always count on your dog to make them not suck. How? By simply being the dog. Fortunately, tonight we find ourselves triply lucky in the canine department. Not only do we have Mel to keep us from feeling sucky, we also have Ginger and Barkley, our two fave dog sitting companions. Look at those 3 old dogs and tell me your life would not be sheer bliss if you could hang with them.

Oh and one of the dogs came with another teenage boy so we have plenty of food in the house if you want to come over and visit our crazy home.

Hey, I wonder if I can find a dog sled for Gary to get to work tomorrow. Damn, too bad that snow melted. (Dr. Jimmy, that snow comment was for you, babe)

Haven’t had enough of me yet? You can also read me at 50-Something Moms Blog. For photo enthusiasts, visit Leaving the zip code, photos from outside the comfort zone.

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September 29, 2009 · 8:17 pm

My true love of AAA

501px-AAA_logo.svg

I have been a AAA member on and off for many years. There is something comforting about knowing that you can have roadside assistance wherever you may be.

Hmmm, define ‘assistance’.

I have never called them before yesterday, and honestly I use the membership more for hotel discounts than anything else. I first called to rescue the keys from the trunk of the car. That went quite well, less than an hour and I was good to go.

Then, as if Mercury in Retrograde had not wreaked enough havoc with my family in the last however much time it has been wreaking, we were faced with an unfortunate blow out.

In the rain.

In the dark.

Again, I pulled out my trusty AAA card and gave them a ring, telling them it is hard to believe but I need their assistance for a second time that evening. A very polite women gets all my info, gives me a code # and sympathizes with my bad day. She was lovely. Everything is fine until…

Husband decides to change the tire.

In the rain(ish).

In the dark.

In a SUIT!

Screaming. Yelling. Name calling. Yadayadayada, I called back AAA and canceled the request. I will spare you the details of the need for a second round of calling and canceling, but you can imagine how angry I was by then. Telling the woman the story she says, “Now Amy, if you run him over with your car you will go to jail for a long time. Just withhold dinner for a few weeks.” I surely thought she would tell me to withhold something else.

After all this I decided  what I think the true definition of ‘assistance’ is:

When you are so angry you are considering spousal homicide, they talk you down.

All kidding aside, I cannot say enough good things about AAA, their service and their helpful and rather funny employees. You guys rock. I also want to thank you for not suspending my membership for too many calls in one day.

I would imagine you must have some kind of cry wolf clause in your contract, no?

Haven’t had enough of me yet? You can also read me at 50-Something Moms Blog. For photo enthusiasts, visit Leaving the zip code, photos from outside the comfort zone.

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September 29, 2009 · 12:27 am

Time to (laugh till you) Cry Tuesday

Smoked Salmon Bagel

Jews were not meant to go without food.

It is a simple fact that without caloric intake, and surely caffeine, things can go haywire.

Big time.

Antics. That is the only way to explain the absurdity of the end of my day. Amy antics. To the nth degree.

Keep in mind that the patriarchs in the family are hearing about this for the first time with this blog post, so to my dad and father-in-law, sorry the bagels were not warmed up and really, it was all my fault.

Here goes. And understand that there is no way you could make this stuff up.

I, in my control freak fashion infinite kindness, tried to help my mother-in-law out by picking up the food for break fast and keeping it in my garage fridge so it would not spoil. On cooler days she can keep it on her terrace, but in the name of not wanting rancid smoked fish and egg salad, we offered to keep it here and bring it over to her house at 5 when my husband and the dads went back to closing services for Yom Kippur.

For reasons of logistics I was taking my dad’s car. I loaded the trunk, closed it and realized I had just…

locked the keys in the trunk!

Yeh, well that did not suck much. I was going to run to my parents house (35 minutes away) to get another set of keys when my mother-in-law, in her infinite wisdom suggested AAA. The fact that she was not ready to kill me at this point is truly amazing.

I begged the guy on the phone to get here ASAP telling him how my dad was going to kill me. Then promptly told him how old I was when he replied, “hey, I am 62 and I am still afraid of my mother! She used to chase me with a wooden spoon.” Alrighty, then.

Sure enough they sent a locksmith within in the hour.

My man Andre! Oh, how I loved him. Especially when we found out that the trunk release button did not work unless the key was in the ignition. If you are still with me here, THE KEYS WERE IN THE DAMN TRUNK. He used the little entry to the trunk through the armrest in the back seat and somehow navigated around platters and bagels and kugels to find those keys. And during it all gave some sage-like advice about some higher reason why we should not be where we were supposed to be at that moment and that is why this happened.

Zen locksmith.

And then it started to rain.

Luckily we got there about 15 minutes before the starving temple guys and made a quick effort of getting it all together.

Sorry dad, but don’t worry, the car is fine. Thanks to my mother-in-law for being such a good sport and my mom for staying calm and sharing a good (nervous) laugh through it all.

Moral of the story:

Stay out of it and risk the rancid fish on the terrace.

Haven’t had enough of me yet? You can also read me at 50-Something Moms Blog. For photo enthusiasts, visit Leaving the zip code, photos from outside the comfort zone.

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