I Drove Here for THIS?

Some time in November or December of last year, the stereo in my car developed an exciting new feature in which any component relating to playing CD's ceased to function. Instead, if I touched ANY of the buttons that pertained to the playing (or ejecting) of CDs, the stereo would respond with a barrage of angry clicks like some kind of deranged electronic beetle. After putting up with nothing but broadcast radio for over half a year, I finally called the dealer and made an appointment to get it fixed. At the time that I made the appointment, I told the person at the dealership that my stereo would neither play nor eject my CDs. They told me at that time "we'll take a look at it, but depending on what we find we may need to just order a new stereo. We don't keep those in stock." Fine, this makes sense.

SOOOO, fast forward to this morning when I lumber out of my house at the buttcrack of dawn to drive the 20 miles to the dealership in morning rush hour traffic. At least I could listen to my CDs while I . . . ohhh, wait. So, I pulled into the garage with the intention of working on my laptop in the waiting room while a technician looked at my car, attempted to fix the stereo with a coat hanger, and then provided me with an estimate as to how much a new one would cost (a stereo, not a coat hanger). So imagine my DELIGHT when the person I checked in with took my keys, spent approximately 15 seconds sitting in my car, and then proceeded to call the parts department to get a price on a new stereo. He explained to me "we don't even attempt to fix stereos. We just order a new or refurbished one."

W. T. F? I was perplexed, so I asked the silly question. "If you don't fix stereos, then why did someone have me make an appointment to bring my car down here?" Apparently I wasn't able to fully mask the hostility in my voice, as this man backed up a step before replying "well, so we could verify what the problem was."

OK, I will admit, I have girl parts. And I realize that this automatically excludes me from being able to comprehend the "tuck rule" in the NFL or to ever hope to write my name in yellow snow. HOWEVER, somehow I feel that I would have been able to scrape together enough spatial perception to not only LOCATE and DEPRESS the "eject" button on the stereo, but also to actually ascertain whether or not the CD was ejected from the device. I could have even probably called in a favor from a friend and had them verify that I was indeed pressing the correct button and that I had not recently suffered an extreme cranial injury.