THE COURTESY CAR: PART II

So, I return my hot little courtesy car to the dealership last night, and stroll into the service area to collect my own.

I’m a little sheepish after this morning’s… incident, which upon reflection, was only ten minutes of my life, but certainly illuminating, none the less.

As I walk in, I notice that Barbie’s not there, and although she is the world’s worst ‘receptionist’, I hope she didn’t get into too much trouble.

Ok.  I don’t give a crap; let’s be honest.

So I’m greeting by a couple of new faces; two blokes I’ve not seen before, but that don’t mean anything.  There are like a billion people working at this place.

They’re really polite and professional, and I’m feeling good as I hand the courtesy car keys back.

‘What name was it under?’ one of them asks nicely.

‘Buttler.’

‘Ahh yes… the i30.’ He grabs the paperwork, and explains what he’s done for me, like he’s actually done it himself.  Naturally, I pay absolute attention to everything he says (in reality, I’m trying not to fall asleep… car car car… zzzzz).  He looks to clean to have been working on my wheels.  ‘So that’s $350.00, thank you.’

What?  ‘$350.00?  I was quoted $250.00.’  You’ve got to be kidding me?  My heart starts racing! Oh no! I’ve miraculously worked $250.00 into my Christmas budget for this friggin’ service, and its $350.00?  What the hell extra have they done to my car? Why didn’t they ring me and tell me?  What’s worse: I don’t have $350.00 in my eftpos account!!  Did I misunderstand the figure they quote me?  Surely not? What the hell? Panick envelopes me.

‘$250.00?  Who quoted you that?’

‘The dude that booked my car in for the service.’  This dude has a lot to answer for, let me tell you.  ‘I checked the price before I booked it in, because I had to budget for it at this time of year….’  Oh dear God, what am I going to do?!

‘When did you book your car in?’

 ‘Oh… it would have been early December.  Maybe the first week of December?  I know I gave myself three weeks, because I needed a courtesy car, so it would have been early December.’

‘Ahhh… that explains it!’ he smiled.  ‘We’ve had a price increase since then.’

Oh great.  Now I’m out another $100 a didn’t budget for, and I don’t know how I’m going to pay for my service… what the fuck am I going to do? I’m standing there, trying not to show the screaming panic going on inside me, then it dawns on me; I was quoted $250.  I’m not paying any more than that.  No way!

‘That’s a big price increase, from $250 to $350...’ I say in an attempt to calm my panic.

‘It is, and that’s because the service schedules have been changed around.  We change the spark plugs in this service now…’ and the rest of what he said was blurred out because it was car stuff, and instead of panicking, I was trying not to fall asleep.

‘So what I can do for you is reduce this service down to the $250 you were quoted originally, when you booked your car in.’

You fucken legend.  ‘Thank you so much.  I appreciate that, because I was not prepared for an extra $100 at this time of year.’

‘No,’ he laughs.  ‘It’s certainly an expensive time of year…’ he clacks away at the computer, reprints the invoice and takes my hard earned.

I was still so inwardly rattled, that even though I knew my eftpos account had sufficient funds to cover the service, I was panicking that it would decline.  Ever done that?  You know there is money there, but you’re frightened that someone has stolen your identity and money in the moments it’s taken you to pull your card from your purse? 

I find myself handing my card over to pay for something, then trying to look calm and casual, when all I want to do is stare at the little eftpos machine, ready to punch it in the nuts if it declines.

So, I head off home in my freshly serviced baby, reflecting upon what an interesting day it’s been.  One drama after the other, but in the end, it all worked out okay.

I wonder how Barbie’s going?

Peace out.