(Cue ominous music)

The week started with the scheduled trip to the Honda dealer for a 30, 000 mile checkup. This gave me several hours to read and comment on the stories for Monday night's critique group. The Ypsi dealership gets points for their muzak. They play a Motown track from the 60s and 70s. I refrained from singing along, even on the refrains.

The unpleasant news was that at just 30, 000 miles, I needed new brake pads and rotors. Given that I make a lot of use of the regenerative breaking, this is confusing. But it is what it is, so I took the car back to the dealership on Tuesday, giving me time to work on other projects.

Wednesday was not going to be so exciting. I got some groceries in the morning, recharged the car and took Caz for a ride when I headed out to pay my mortage.

I didn't realize that the potholes were massing at the border, and they they had a new weapon - the DeathPot. Armored and defended by a flotilla of lesser assassins, this behemoth lies in wait for the moment when a car coming the other way forces the unwary traveller to proceed in a straight line, instead of the usual weaving across the road like a drunken sailor.

I got about a mile past the pothole when I heard the tell-tale heartbeat of a flat tire. I pulled into the next parking lot, dug out my Green Slime inflator (honest, that's the brand name. Somebody really needs to fire their marketting department.) and started to hook the pump to the tire so I could get back on my way.

That's when I saw the hole the size of my fist in the sidewall.

"Hello Triple-A?"

"Please press 1 for English, Two for Spanish, Pi for Esperanto, or..."

Some twenty minutes later, after explaining where I was, what the issue was, clicking bunches of numbers and saying "One" a lot, the recorded system said. "I'm transferring you to a human representative."

Needless to say, the human rep did not get any of the info I'd spent the last twenty minutes inputting into the automated system, so we went through that all over again.

"Did you say you've got a brat fire?"

Eventually, she agreed to send a tow truck to take my car to the nearest AAA dealer, some 30 miles away.

When the tow truck finally arrived, the driver said "Why are you going there? You know we charge by the mile, right?"

It turns out that AAA will try to send you to the nearest (or not nearest) AAA dealer, not the nearest repair facility. The tow truck driver was somewhat peeved at them for steering customers into spending more money than they needed to.

So we agreed that he'd take me to the nearest car dealership. One in Dexter that I've used before.

We got there about 5 minutes before closing, and they took my data and scheduled my car to be looked at first thing in the morning. The tow truck driver noticed that the other tire on that side of the car had a nasty bulge, so I told the garage to replace both passenger side tires.

Late Thursday afternoon (not first thing in the morning) the dealership called to tell me that they'd examined my car, and it needed two new tires.

Like, Duh. That's what I told them when I brought it in!

They'd order the tires and they'd be in sometime on Friday.

They didn't order them on Wed? Or even Thur morning?

In years past, I'd get a phone call or text along the lines of "Your car is next for servicing. Estimated completion time XZ:ZZ."

This is useful if you've got to coordinate getting a ride to pick up your car.

This time, after I made a bunch of calls to their "I'm not available right now but leave a message and I'll never call you back" machine, I got called *AFTER* the car was done.

I used to like this dealership, I'm less thrilled now.

Luckily, my neighbor is a really nice guy and was happy to take me in to the dealer to get my car. Life was complicated because I couldn't schedule the trip or even give him a 30 minute warning.

But, I got my car about 5:15 on Friday, with dinner guests expected about 6:00.

I beat the guests home by scant minutes, so all's well that ends finally.

In the flurry of car follies, I never noticed the date until midnight on Saturday. That's when I realized that Sunday was May Day.

It would have been Carol and my 29'th anniversary.

I hadn't prepared for this, so it caught me by surprise and kicked my basic mood into the gutter.