A Bad Week in Review

Last week was a very long week and one that was less than ordinary for me.  My life is pretty consistent from day to day, week to week, year to year so when I do get some out of the out of the ordinary situations, it's exhausts me.  Here's some of my low lights of the week:

• I normally drive back and forth to work almost 250 miles a week, which is roughly 25 miles each way.  Because of all the snow we've had lately and the bad traffic/drivers because of it, I spent over 9 hours to drive 250 miles this week, which the majority of my drive is highway/freeway. I spent over 3 hours alone on Monday. Hey, I guess I didn't drive quite 250 miles, more like 230 miles.  More on that later.
• Have you ever been lying in bed and you feel like something is crawling on you?  You quickly wisp away whatever you think it is and turn on the light.  I've done this many times and realizing it's nothing.   I sleep in a bed that no matter how hard I try, I cannot get rid of all the cat hair on it and it ends up tickling my face or body or just ends up in my eyes in the morning. On Wednesday, I felt a tickle on my chin.  I wiped that feeling away and turned on the light opening up the sheets and comforter.  Nothing.  After shaking the blankets a little bit, I found a lady bug....or Asian Beetle or whatever they are called. So I did have that thing crawling on my chin!  It grossed me out but it DEFINITELY could have been a worse bug or (gulp).... an arachnid.
• On my way to work on Thursday, less than two miles from work, my battery light and brake light came on at the same time.  I Googled it when I got to work as well as checking my manual in my car and it sounded like it could be my alternator.  I went out to check it at lunch and drive it about two miles and the lights were on but it seemed ok.  I left work and hopped on Highway 62 when my lights started to dim.  Uh-oh, I was losing power and I was stuck right in the middle of a busy highway in the left lane.  After about a mile or two, I lost power completely and was forced to coast to the left side of the highway, not a safe place to be anyways, let alone super rush hour traffic and on a shoulder that was less than a true shoulder as there was tons of snow on the side.  I panicked and called Michael first to let him know what happened and to come out and find me and then called my insurance company for roadside assistance.  After spending what seemed like an eternity on the phone with them, they said someone would come out and get me in about an hour.  Grrrr....about 40 minutes into my wait in a cold, heatless car on the side of the road, the highway helper truck came up and asked me if I needed help.  I told him I had assistance on the way but he waited there until the tow truck came since he told me I was in an unsafe area with all of the traffic.  Michael came and I warmed up in his car and shortly after the tow truck came from Bobby and Steve's in Eden Prairie came and towed me back to their shop.  Because I had no say in who towed me (the insurance company set it up) I felt as though I had no choice to go with them to diagnose my car and find out what was wrong.  I left their shop with a loaner car which was a Dodge Grand Caravan that was less than perfect but got me from Point A to Point B.  We got home at 9:15 pm and Bobby's and Steve's called and said it was my alternator that went out.  I asked them how much it would cost and with parts and labor it would be just over $500. I told them I would call them back and I Googled the part and I could find it new for $200 or remanufactured for an average of $160.  I called them back asking if I could buy the part and they could do the labor and he said yes but they didn't guarantee the work and there would be no warranty. I am already skeptical of mechanics so I did not like that idea.  I told him of the price of a remanufactured part I found on Google and told him of the new part for $200 and asked if he could match it.  He said he would give it to me for $225.  I was ok with that and let him proceed with the work and my car would be done the next day.  I picked up my car on Friday on my lunch break and paid $419 for the part and labor.  After leaving and looking at my invoice/receipt, I see the following verbiage..."Alternator- Remfd- Standard".  Ok, so the dude asshole mislead me on the phone the night before telling me he would give me a new alternator for $225, when in fact he gave me a remanufactured alternator for that price.  I didn't call them back to bitch about it, despite how much it pissed me off.  I let it roll off my shoulders and instead decided to blog about it.  I've used Bobby and Steve's before, the Bloomington location and I was not happy with their service either so I'm telling you to not to use their services and tell all your friends about it too.  

My loaner car. It actually looks better than it really was.

• On my way back from picking up my car on Friday on my lunch break, I had to grab some food for the sake of time so I stopped at Wendy's for chili and a baked potato....a baked potato that had a really nice long, black hair in it.  Aauugghh.

So that was my week.  Things definitely could have been worse but cumulatively, it was all very draining.  We did go out on Friday night with Tanya and Chris which made my week a little brighter but I'll write about that another time.

This week has already been a lot better.  How can it not be? It's Christmas week!  Until next time...