****UPDATED**** This won’t be too long – of course it’s the beginning for a major long post but right now I’m on limited time. You’re probably asking yourself ‘how does she manage to get in these situations?’ and the answer is…*drum roll*…just lucky and I can handle it. There’s a lot going on – none of it has anything to do with poker – and until the smoke clears and I’m settled again (slides out and all), everything is right up in the air. Right this minute I’m sitting out in front of Wheeler RV again, 25 miles out of Vegas, the generator is cranking (that’s how I have power when I’m not hooked up to electrical), motostat is statting (that’s how I have two way internet everywhere I go), it’s 6:20 AM – and I’m having a glass of wine before I go into ‘insanity mode’ here in a few hours. Sweet! I’m seriously hoping that by tonight, I will be locked back down in my RV space, slides out, calm and relaxed…having another glass of wine as I finish this post. Until then…*glasses clink*

Backtrack to the first week in March. I hit Gaudin Ford Body Shop, set up an appointment to rectify all the ugly little blemishes I had put on the Silver Steed (like the door when I backed it into the pole at the ATM – and the roof when I made it to the 2nd floor of Caesar’s parking garage) and the appointment time was three weeks out – bring it in on the 21st. The receptionist queried Ken (my service rep), “Why not bring it on Monday?” His reply was that there was no reason to bring it in a day early when they couldn’t get to it until the morning of the 21st. Right on, Ken! Leave a deposit or we ain’t gonna mess wit’cha. Ok. $500 big ones. Total cost somewhere around $900 – five working days give or take a day. Right on baby! I’m good to go.

At 8:30ish AM, on the 21st, I arrived, spoke with Ken, told him about the paint scrapes on the roof (on my original appointment, the only thing wrong with the Steed was the door – the roof happened a week later) and he gave me an estimate on that – add another one to two days to the time frame – ok, fix it! I held out my keys, “What of this do you need?”

“You might want to leave only the key. The boys in the body shop are hard on remotes.”

I took off the key, handed it to him, bade him hasta-lum-bago, and headed for Enterprise Rent a Car – conveniently located right at the Gaudin Ford Dealership. I have to say the boys at Enterprise are the most cheerful, wonderfully fun people I’ve met – in the service industry – in a long, long time. I barely managed to fold my body into the Sebring – duck your head, damn it! Away I went. Sleep was needed if I was going to fade the E/O-Play list at work that night.

Thursday afternoon – three working days later – I awoke to a phone message. “We need your remote.” Kee-rist! I hit the shower and headed for work early. I pulled into Gaudin Body Shop, waltzed in to the office, and approached the receptionist with my remote in hand, “You called me, Linda Geenen. You need the remote for my truck?”

She looked at me like I had three eyes in my forehead and she didn’t know which one to focus on first.

“I received a phone call from you about the remote for my truck…”

Doh! Somewhere the lights went off. She pulled out my file. I said, “Please don’t tell me my truck has sat here for three working days and it’s taken you this long to figure out that you need the remote and you just called me, because if you do, I’m going to throw up on your counter!”

She stutter/stammered…”Let me call Ken.”

Me, “Ok!”

Of course we went to voice mail for Ken. I had to go to work. I left. On Friday, at 11:30 AM, I called the body shop and asked for Ken – straight to voice mail. “If you leave a message before 3 PM, I’ll get back to you on the same day. If you leave a message after 3 PM, I’ll return your call the following business day.”

LIAR!

No call. Hey, they work M-F.

Monday afternoon, the 27th, I called Ken. It took me three attempts – two cut-offs – before I got him. He said we were about on schedule with the time frame. I asked him about the remote. He said that he had informed the receptionist to call me – and after checking back, he had to tell her again. He figured I’d have my truck by Friday. I told him I was in a bind with the time frame. The RV Park I was in would have clearance from Nevada Power by the end of the week and I would be expected to move to my original space if I wanted it – and I did. And I expressed to him that I work at night and sleep during the day. C U on Friday!

I called on Thursday, before 3 PM, and left a message, no call back.

Friday morning – Linda arrives at Gaudin Ford Body Shop – Ken comes out, the spiel begins. The person that is the overall, bottom line, on paint and body work wasn’t happy with the way the door looked. It was going back to somewhere (excuse me if I can’t remember here), and he figured they would have it for me on Monday afternoon. I really had a hard time with this one. I knew Nevada Power had dropped the last line in my park – the one that ran over my original space – and I was sure that I was going to receive notice that it was time to move. I relayed all of this to Ken. He did a “…well…it is your truck, you can take it if you want.”

“Sure…then I have to come back again and fade the whole paint thing over again…”

I finally decided I would leave the Silver Steed, confident that I would have it on Monday. I had already made numerous calls to Enterprise to extend the length of my original rental. I went to their office to extend the rental again. They asked if everything was going as planned. I barked, “Fuck no!” and went into the explanation of the time delay. They busted up laughing. They were great. I wasn’t!

Of course when I got up on that same day, I had a note taped to my door. I could move back to my original space. Sheesh! Like who didn’t know that wasn’t going to happen?

Monday afternoon arrived. The 3rd of April. I got up early, got ready for work, and headed for Gaudin Ford. When I arrived, I was told to wait; Ken would come and talk to me. He did! Poor Ken. The Silver Steed was still undergoing something…but what? He said it would be ready on Tuesday afternoon. I had a fit – I even managed to have said fit with only a shaky voice at some points – no swear words – and no jumping up and down and throwing things. I told him we needed to talk about the remote. I asked him why it would take three days for someone to figure out that they had to call me if they needed it. He kind of stammered around with the fact that I didn’t tell him he needed it. Whoa! I told him that I asked him what he would need. He didn’t see it that way and pressed the fact that I should have told him he needed the remote to start the truck. That when he tried to start it, it ‘woofed’ at him. (Good Steed! Great job! Woof at everyone that tries to fuck you without the right combination/code/key)!

I seriously went into shaking voice mode – pissed as hell – and told him that there was absolutely no reason that it should take three working days for someone to figure out that they needed the remote to start work on my truck.

He said we were right on schedule.

I said no we weren’t. We figured approximately five working days for the door and one to two days for the roof.

Get this! He acted like I was supposed to tell him he needed the remote. I asked him how I would know. I was new to the truck/it was new to me. I had ordered the security system that does not allow fuel to the carburetor if a button isn’t pushed. When the truck arrived, I was told that diesel doesn’t work that way. But they had a security system they would install for me. OK! I’m not in the auto industry but you are.

I told him I was totally ‘pissed’ (that was my only lapse into swear mode) about the fact that it took three working days for them to let me know they needed the remote and I wanted the name of the overall person that was head of the body shop. He gave it to me.

Everyone in the waiting area had to be chuckling by now. It was a public display. Ken was back pedaling. Linda was attacking. I told him that if I bought a light bulb at Wal-Mart, took it home and tried it out, and it didn’t work, unless I returned it, the manufacture would never know they had a faulty product. And Gaudin Ford is a multi-million dollar industry and if someone doesn’t know they need a remote to start a vehicle and they tell someone to call me and the message isn’t relayed, there’s a flaw somewhere in the link that makes businesses work.

Ken told me that he had done everything he felt he was supposed to do and that he couldn’t say anything else to make me feel better. That when he came to the front office, he saw my anguish (I’m assuming that means all the people that he deals with), and that he rode the people in the body shop pretty hard, trying to get work orders finished and out the door. And that my vehicle setting there for an extended period of time didn’t improve or make anything better for Gaudin Ford.

I asked him if I was being charged extra for the time it took when someone didn’t like the way the job looked. His reply was that that was a good question…and no…there was no extra charge.

I once again stressed to him that I was a day sleeper/night worker, and I had to move out of the space I was in the RV Park. I know he hated me by now. I just wasn’t going away. He promised me that it would be ready by Tuesday night – the paint was a quick dry – they would wash it and it would be ready. But then I was promised on Friday AM that it would be ready by Monday night. By now nothing anyone said was going to make it better for me.

I asked him if Gaudin Ford would pick up the additional three days of car rental that I was fading because of the remote. Nope! Only if it was warranty work. I ranted a little further over the fact that something was wrong somewhere in their chain of command if someone was dropping the ball. I stated that I had purchased two new trucks from Gaudin Ford and I didn’t even want to walk through the door of the place now…Blah, Blah, Blah.

I know he hated me even more by now but he was still civil when I left.

I arrived on Tuesday night – 4:15 PM. The receptionist told Ken I was waiting. I waited. And waited. And waited. Several more people told him I was waiting – they told me they had told him. He came out of the back office at 4:50; looked at everyone seated in the receptionist area – except me. I waved my arm. He didn’t even bother with hello, he gruffly said, “They are getting ready to paint now.”

My voice had to have the edge of ice spread over the sharpest blade on Earth, “FINE!”

He tried to continue, “We had some issues…”

I stood up, the ice was thicker and the blade was even sharper, “FINE!”

I walked out the door, curled myself into fetal position to climb in to the rental car and headed for work. What else can you do? I wasn’t going to die in a rage over something that I obviously couldn’t change. I’m completely amazed by the fact that it took him 35 minutes to come out and tell me that. I could have been on my way out the door a lot earlier. One thing was certain, I knew that Wednesday, same time, same station, I would be back at Gaudin Ford, ready to face down the man that kept my Steed locked away in captivity.

And twice I went into the main building of Gaudin Ford, looking for the Manager. On Friday morning, the day I went in thinking I could pick up the Steed, I hung around for almost 45 minutes. He must not really work there. No one could find him but they knew he was there somewhere because his office was open. Oh yeah…they are going to hear from. If it’s broke – it needs to be fixed.

When I got up Wednesday afternoon, I got a phone call from Ken. The Steed was ready to go. He thanked me for my patience. Get up off the floor and stop laughing. I hit the shower and picked up my baby. OMG! It’s so wonderful to drive. There just is not comparison.

This mouse can’t pull a house:

But this baby can take down a building:

Fast forward to sitting in front of Wheeler RV – that’s in the next post.