Thursday, December 20, 2007

In Which The 'Chick Tries to be Nice and Others Do Not Recognize Her Efforts


So.

This afternoon, Rockboy called the 'chick and said that he had locked his keys in his car while at school. Roadchick, ever the good mama, carries a set of his keys with her at all times and headed over the school to liberate his car keys.

Car keys liberated, Roadchick headed home. One minute later, her cell phone rang. It was Rockboy.

Rockboy: Mom, can you come back to the school? I was sideswiped.

Roadchick: Oh, fuck . . . yes, be right there.

One quick U-turn later, the 'chick returned to school. Rockboy was headed down the street away from the school and a girl was backing out of her parking space. She did not see Rockboy and apparently did not hear his horn. She backed right into the side of the Rockmobile.

Sigh.

The 'chick assessed the damage and since Rockboy's car is 10 years old and had hail damage from a previous owner, she decided to be generous and giving in light of the holiday season.

The 'chick called the girl's father and explained what happened and offered to settle the whole thing for $150.00, no insurance companies involved.

(Roadchick is able to be magnanimous since Redneck is a mechanic-par-excellence and he could do the door-replacing with a junk yard door.)

The father said, well, now, he didn't know . . . he would want to see the damage to his daughter's car, etc.

Roadchick said ok, you've got the cell phone number, call with your decision.

While Roadchick was driving home (for the second time, in the POURING rain), her cell phone rang. It was the girl's mother.

Mother: I understand that you're willing to settle this for $150.00. How did you come up with that number, because I was looking at the website for Pull-A-Part and doors cost $28.00 and you said your boyfriend would put the door on.

Roadchick: Yes, that's the price of the door.

Mother: So, what is all the extra money for?

Roadchick: All the extra money is for all the trips to the junk yard because even though they may have the car on the lot, that does NOT mean there is a usable door on the car. It is also for my boyfriend to have to remove the hopefully usable door, haul it home, remove the damaged door and install the junk yard door. That does NOT take into account that the odds of finding the same colored door are slim to none. And certainly you don't expect him to do this for free . . . it's not like the 'chick woke up this morning and said, "Let's put a different door on Rockboy's car. Won't that be fun?"

Mother: Well, I think that's excessive.

Roadchick: Well, the 'chick doesn't. What is your insurance deductible? Probably a minimum of $250.00 and then of course, your rates are going to go up as well. But, it's up to you. The 'chick has pictures - she'll email them to you.

Mother: Fine. We'll see about this.

Roadchick: That will be fine.

When the 'chick got home, she made a couple of phone calls. For a shop to do the work, including matching the paint and possibly straightening the frame, the price ranged from $1500.00 to $2100.00

The 'chick emailed the pictures to Mother.

Apparently, Mother made some calls too.

The 'chick got a very short email stating that this was such a busy time of year, let's just take care of this, hmmmm? Girl will bring a check to school tomorrow and give it to Rockboy.

That's the gratitude you get for trying to be nice at the holidays.

Next time, it's going to the insurance company. The 'chick could use some extra money and the Rockmobile would STILL get a junkyard door.

3 comments:

Susan said...

First, diggin' the new layout.

second, what a drag. People are just..ugh I say.

Roadchick said...

Susan~ yeah, well . . . at least the 'chick feels like she did the right thing, even if it wasn't appreciated right now.

heather said...

the girls mama didn't know she was up against the chick. what a chump, trying to talk you down from a ~very~ generous offer. way to stand up for yourself there chick. i'm proud of you! you did the nice thing and didn't allow yourself to become a doormat when the girls mom decided to try to play hardball.