Tuesday, April 27, 2010

State Inspection

I took my overdue car to state inspection two weeks ago, and it failed.
Well, shit happens.
Only it happened on a very bad day and when the scaly little men handed me the "Auto Repair Order form", which stated that I needed to pay $600 to have my car fixed I almost had another panic attack. And I don´t often have panic attacks, only lately since I inadvertently became a single mother!!!

Anyway, he explained to me what was wrong and that it was very unusual for a suspension ball joint to be in a state like that unless the car was in a bad accident or the ball joint had been tightened incorrectly.

What was I to say?
Ball joint???
Lower suspension arm???
What the hell!!
I am not a mechanic.

I made an appointment to have the car fixed there, which funny enough would have been possible the next day. Funny, because after I had the car fixed somewhere else, by someone who did not take the entire car apart to replace the lower suspension arm and only charged me $120, they were unable to fit me in to look at the car and approve the inspection.
In fact, I had to wait an entire week. When I got there at 8.00 a.m. this morning, like I was told to do, with two half asleep kids clinging onto my legs, I politely asked if they could look at the car straight away.
It had been fixed and all it needed was someone to quickly look underneath (by then even I knew what to look for) and give me the thumbs up, and the Inspection sticker.

However, this was not so. The little weasel had the audacity to tell me that there was no proof that it had been fixed and since it has been a week since they last looked at it there might be something else wrong or I may have been in an accident!!!

I was no longer polite!!

I told him that I would walk with the kids to the nearby playground and that I would be back in an hour to pick up my car plus sticker.

We only were at Lombardy playground for 30 minutes when I got the call that my car was ready to be picked up.

What is wrong with people????