Manjoyment Monday: Lulu's Hero

This morning, Lulu and I had quite an adventure. And whenever there is an adventure where Lulu is concerned it morphs into quite the Saga.

My morning started out a little off to begin with. For some reason the heat in my bedroom is set to come on at like 5:30am at 10000 degrees. So I was warm and irritable.

I hit the MOTHER OF ALL POTHOLES on Peninsula Boulevard right before the Hospital. It was regretably unavoidable even though I knew it was there from previous drives down the road. There was some other car in the left lane riding the line so I couldn't really go around this MASSIVE pothole.

So I'm on the Southern State and right around the Meadowbrook this fun little light pops up on my dash. It kind of looks like this: (!) and it is also a very vague light. It could mean anything from Lulu requires windshield wiper fluid to holy hell the rear axle is going to fly off at any second!

I don't smell anything strange leaking out from under the hood, nor can I hear anything that sounds remotely threatening so I just slow down and continue on.

By the time I am approaching the Wantagh and I realize, yeah, that's the tire. I get off on the Wantagh reasoning to myself that at least I'll be closer to my Dad's office and he can come and help me out if things get ugly.

Things got ugly.

I couldn't make it to the Sunrise Highway exit (although I wound up stopping within sight of it), and when I called AAA they said they couldn't send someone because the Wantagh doesn't have a shoulder and their trucks are not allowed. So I'd have to call a tow, have it tow me off the Wantagh and then call AAA back again.

At this point my Dad was on his way and he told me to call the HELP Truck and see what they could do. Before I even called he pulled up behind me and pretty much all he could do was give me the tow truck's phone number. Awesome.

Dad arrives with a pump and we get some air in the tire and drive it off the highway and into a parking lot nearby and inflate some more.


Yeah, it was a fun morning.

Finally we get to the nearby Subaru dealer's Service Shop and drop off the car. I'll definitely need a new tire and I might be in the market for a full new set (which wont' be so happy for my bank account) but we'll see what the prognosis is later today.

So here he is, Lulu's hero and today's Man. M'Dad.

Don't he look so cute in his little safety yellow vest?

The Lulu Saga: A Neverending Story

This summer Lulu got hit in the parking lot of the Dick's Sportings Good at the mall. I was super pissed that I didn't notice it before we drove off, otherwise I would have torn the red pick up truck driver who couldn't fit into the spot next to mine without mashing into my door and folding back my mirror a piece of my mind. I definitely would have at least taken down his license plate and reported him to the police so I wouldn't have to pay for the damages myself.

But of course I didn't realize it until we were on the road and Jaclyn had mentioned my mirror was folded. We were in a rush and I hadn't needed to look at that mirror so she folded it back and we went on our merry way. Got home and realized that the guy next to me had really nailed Lulu's passenger side door pretty good.

Took a nice chunk out of the crown of the car door and dented it too. Awesome.

I didn't get around to taking care of it until now.

One of the guys who works in the shop at work has a friend who owns a body shop nearby and he said he'd fix it for me. Fill it in, repaint the door, seal it up good so it wouldn't rust over the winter.

So I dropped off Lulu Friday night, picked her back up Sunday morning (before running out the door to Kleinfelds) and it was beautiful. Rick did an awesome job. He even detailed her for me.

I don't think Lulu has been that clean since I got her.

Meanwhile, I was due for an inspection, new registration, and a service. Dropped Lulu off at our dealership and asked them to do the Subaru 30,000 mile service, change the spark plugs and whatnot. I had just gotten an oil change a month before so I didn't need that.

All together the service tech said it'd be about $300-400. Okay. That's not horrible. Lulu hasn't really cost me any money since I've bought her, she hasn't needed any major repairs and a lot of the time the services were cheap and half of my oil changes have been free.

When I picked up Lulu though I paid a bill for over $500. WTF!?!

I had had a really bad day. There was a lot going on at work, I was exhausted and moody and felt like I was going to burst into tears any second. Plus my service tech wasn't there and no one else would have known what we had spoken about on the phone. So I really didn't want to be that girl who cried and screamed at them when it wasn't their fault, it was this one particular guy's fault. The other people down in the service area are very friendly and explain things and even print out an itemized list for me because I like to keep track of things. This one service tech I got this time really threw me for a loop.

Turns out they wound up giving me the dealership service instead of the Subaru service and the dealership services is basically a load of crap that I could have either done myself or didn't really need done in the first place. Whereas the Subaru service recommended by the manufacturer is a series of tests, checking one or two vital engine parts and flushing the fluids.

I'm livid, but I'm also incredibly busy at work this week so I haven't had a chance to call back. My father was away on business and got home last night so we got a chance to look at the bill and suss out exactly what had happened. Meanwhile they busted something in Lulu's business while they were in there doing god knows what, and now the button to circulate the air throughout the cabin doesn't work.

So not only did they break something in my car, but they charged me for things I said I didn't want and gave me the wrong service. Forgive me, but I'm going to have a

DON'T THEY KNOW WHO WE ARE

moment. My family bought three cars from this dealership. Not only that but technically we're also VIPs because we have friends at Fuji Heavy Industries. Up on the sales floor everyone knows us, when we're dropping off a car for a service we'll go up and say hi and chat a bit with the sales people. They're awesome. They're wonderful. They're service techs obviously need to learn a thing or two about how to treat customers.

Coincidentally I got not only a coupon from the dealership in the mail yesterday, but also a letter from the head of the sales team asking how my service went, hoping that if we got a survey we'd be "Completely Satisfied" in everything and if not to contact him. Let's just say my father will be making a call to Mr Sales Lead Sweatervest Man and hopefully he can do something for us.

I hate when people automatically think that just because I'm a woman I don't know what my car needs and what it doesn't need. I hate when people try to sell me on things I don't want and I hate when I get overcharged for something that I can easily do myself!

Review: B is for Badly Placed Windows

Lulu is still in the shop. Oh joy!

She will be in the shop probably until the end of the week. Since Julibean started school today I couldn't continue to use her car to drive myself to work. Instead I got a rental.

It's a Prius.

It is the strangest car I have ever driven.

First of all you have to push a button (A BUTTON?!) to park the car. The shifter is not a shifter at all, it's actually a little knob on the dashboard that hops back to the rest position even if you're in Drive or Reverse.

Speaking of Reverse. It took me 5 minutes this morning just to get the car into gear. I had to turn it off (which is also done by a button) and turn it back on again to get it to shift into Reverse and get me out of the driveway.

Secondly, there are windows where there shouldn't be windows. I mean the Tank used to have little opera windows next to the side view mirrors that I loved to jinx open and get a good breeze directly against my face in the summer without all the noise of opening the window. But these opera windows don't open. They're past the mirrors, almost over the wheel well and it's just odd to have a window there. It's wildly distracting in fact. Please see the beautiful interior photo I snagged off the internets below with said offending window.

The hatch just pisses me off. I love hatchbacks, they're all I drive. I like to know EXACTLY where my trunk ends and having the rear windshield wiper is a godsend in the rain/snow/muck. However, the hatch on the Prius has a ridiculously steep incline to it, a very thick casing around it, oh and it's also segmented into two different windows. So basically despite the fact that it's a hatch, there is barely any actual window to see out. It's almost like I'm driving a sedan which I don't exactly enjoy.

Why should I be able to see clear out my back window Toyota? Why? When you can put a bar across the back window to make it look a little different, why would I need to actually see out the back?

The car also seems like a huge Cadi on the inside when in reality it's kind of small. It's odd. It really messes with my spacial reasoning while I'm inside. I feel like I'm sitting extremely high up, as if I'd hit my head on the ceiling but there's no way to lower the seat vertically, or at least no way that I can find.


There doesn't appear to be a trip odometer. I may have missed it, but I couldn't see it glancing down while driving and that's bothersome. I also despise digital readouts that are right in your face. If I want to know exactly how fast I'm going I'll glance down quickly at my speedometer, I don't need numbers flashing in my line of sight. So the bubble on the dash right near the windshield is annoying.

The windshield itself is huge. Or rather, driving this car is much like driving Casey's old Honda Civic. Basically I can't see the nose of the car, so it is literally like driving around a windshield and guessing how far out the front of the car goes...that's not my favorite.

One thing I do like: the readout on the mileage. I love knowing what kind of mileage I'm getting. It helps me get every last ounce of gas out of my tank before refilling and it also helps me determine how my car is feeling that day or if it needs maintenance. We are anal about recording how many gallons, what the price was, keeping track of mileage, major (and minor) maintenance and all that jazz. So this little computer on my dash is kind of interesting.

The one thing that threw me most: There is a B on the shifter. I mean obviously there isn't a P since you push a button to park so what's left? A D, yes I know what Drive is. N, ahhh neutral. R, reverse reverse! But B? What on earth could it stand for? Not anything like Backup, or Bullshit?

Apparently Ashley has a Prius, who knew? She has informed me that the B stands for downshift. Wow Toyota, where'd you come up with that letter? I mean I know that D is taken but you couldn't just write 1-2-3?

Oddest car ever.

Not a fan. Sorry Toyota. Just because it's a Hybrid doesn't mean everything has to be different about it. I'd rather have a Hybrid version of a standard car mmmkay? Thanks.

Ashley likes that it's different. She's dubbed it a Space Pod. I'm glad there are people who enjoy this Space Pod because the more hybrid cars out there the better, I'm all for a greener car. Just maybe one that's slightly more familiar.

The Lulu Saga: SERIOUSLY?!

I woke up this morning at 4:47am because we thought maybe we'd be adventurous enough to get to the gym at 5am. Well since I don't have work tonight we'll go later so I went back to bed and had a very strange dream about Jason being really upset that he was only getting half the state tax return from NH than he was expecting.

To which I reminded him (in the dream) that he only lived there for 6 months last year and should have only expected half to begin with!

Suffice to say, weird dream aside, I didn't want to get out of bed this morning and I think the universe was trying to tell me something. Of course...I didn't listen.

Maybe I should have.

Running a little late I passed a green panel van that looked like my neighbor Charlie's as I drove around the block. It wasn't Charlie, it was some random guy who had just stopped in the middle of the road and I had to go around him. Then he pulled up right behind me and looked as if he were swerving back and forth trying to get around me. It was weird. One of those things I'd probably report if someone were to ask me: "Did you see anything strange this morning?"

Continued on my way and turned onto the main drag that brings me to the highway. Stopped at a red light, it just turned green and BAM.

Rear-ended.

All I could say when it happened:

"Are we SERIOUS?!"

It looks like it's just Lulu's bumper and maybe a bit of a dent at the base of the hatch for the trunk. Nothing over the top serious.

I think I'm fine. The lady who hit me was fine. I have a little twinge in my neck/back but who knows if that's a result of this or sleeping funny, I guess I'll know later whether or not I'm actually legitimately fine.

But honestly folks...can't Lulu cut a break?!

The Lulu Saga: Fin?

FINALLY!

So like almost a month ago I faxed over the receipt from Hassett over to the body shop up in Albany so I could get a reimbursement for the $115 some-odd it cost me to get my windshield wipers rewired.

I FINALLY got the check. It took forever!

I truly and certainly really hope that this damn Saga is over now. Lulu's been a good girl lately and she was a real trooper through this whole ordeal, but I'm so done with these kinds of shenanigans!

The Lulu Saga: NEVER ENDS!

After an utterly amazing weekend enjoying the PC Show, and the PC Kid's company, as well as making new friends with some WPI guys from Simple Harmonic Motion...I woke up this morning dreading going to work just because I was still exhausted from the after party Saturday night. (Yeah, we started drinking at 4pm on Saturday, and yeah, I'm not in college anymore so I need a full day to recover apparently.)

I get into Lulu and turn the key...*click click click click click* and the dash board does it's own rendition of a light switch rave.

Battery = Dead.

My Dad's away on business so he suggests calling our local mechanic to come around the corner and jump the car and check the battery connections. Gene saves the day and I load Lulu's trunk with some jumper cables (just in case) and drive off to work.

But seriously? They righted Lulu's windshield wipers but didn't connect the battery correctly?! WILL THIS EVER END?!?!

So now I have to make another phone call to the dealership and I'll probably have to drop the car off again and I just want to scream at this point.

(P.S.-Although I'm old and can't party like I used to, James MADE MY LIFE this weekend. Photos and explanation to follow...)

The Lulu Saga...still utterly ridiculous

When last we left, Lulu's windshield wipers were wired backwards. (Wow, try saying that five times fast.)

I dropped my car off at my local dealership. First off let me just toss out here Hassett Subaru is awesome. If you are in the market for a new Subaru, check them out, their customer service is excellent and we've (my Dad, my Mom, myself and my cousin) bought/leased new Subes from them this year and we couldn't be happier.

Anyway, I drop my car off Monday morning explaining that another body shop completely dropped the ball and made this ridiculously hilarious mistake that only would happen to me! The service guy chuckles a little (I mean wouldn't you?) and tells me it should only be an hour's worth of labor.

"Great", I tell him, "the other body shop is paying for it."

I call Tom, the manager of the body shop at Mr. G's and he tells me he'll call and give Hassett billing information so I don't have to worry about charging things...because we all know how that turned out...

Get to Hassett after work (the upside to all this is I get to carpool with my Dad and conversation is always well above par in addition to the fact I get to drive my Dad's Legacy Turbo which is incredible) and low and behold...of course the original body shop fails me again.

Seriously guys?

Had to charge the hour of labor on my own credit card and fax the receipt over to Tom the next day. (Reminder to self: double check he got the fax and has sent reimbursement check.)

First thing I do when I get into Lulu is check to make sure all the fluids are coming out the right place (wow that sounded wrong), and hooray! She's back to new!

...how long did this all take?!

The Lulu Saga...reunited

After a weekend without her. I finally heard back from the body shop on Monday. Lulu was all fixed and painted and they just needed to put her back together again. She would be ready for pick up on Tuesday.

Huzzah!

I quickly made plans to leave early from work Tuesday afternoon, jump on a train from my office into Penn and grab an Amtrak to Albany. Once there, Laura would pick me up, we'd retrieve Lulu, have dinner at Smokey Bones and I'd drive back home.

The best laid plans...

Since the body shop closes at 6pm on weekdays I asked the kind gentlemen to bring my paper work and keys up to the cashier on the sales floor because my train would be getting in at 5:45 and I didn't want to cut it too close. I seriously must have called the body shop six different times in a two hour period during the day to fax things over and make sure Chrissy's insurance company paid and all that jazz and at least two out of those six times I confirmed that my keys and paper work would be waiting for me on the sales floor.

Guess what wasn't there when I got to Mr. G's dealership at 6:10?

So we're explaining to the receptionist/cashier that I have to go back home to LI so I can get to work in the morning and that I was told everything would be set for me by the guys in the body shop. She makes a few calls and finds that even though it's only 10 minutes after quitting time the entire body shop is empty.

Well shit.

Finally she calls her manager and asks if there's anything he can do and to please come out and speak with me. Out strolls Mister G himself, the owner of all the dealerships along the strip. We explain the situation, he whips out his iPhone and starts calling the body shop manager and a few other guys to see if any of them can come back to the shop and get my poor little Lulu.

Eventually, after failing to reach anyone, Mr. G rolls up his monogrammed cuffs and breaks into his own body shop to retrieve my paper work and keys. Laura and I sit down and I help myself to some coffee, assuming it's going to be a really really long night.

In walks Mr. G carrying what looks to be my paper work! He shuffles through the pages and tells me that the insurance company hasn't paid yet. Well fuck. What in the hell am I supposed to do? He tells me to put the almost $3k on my credit card and he will hold onto the paper work personally and credit my account once they get the insurance check.

I have no choice but to charge it.

Eons later, I pull Lulu around next to Laura's pretty little Black Bitch (yeah that's right, we named her Sunfire the Black Bitch because she's oh so saucy), and we inspect the repairs in the dim-lit parking lot.

Other than the fact Lulu wreaks of nail polish, everything appears to be fine. We drive off in search of sustenance and after dinner I get back on the road to get home.

Around the Tappan Zee Bridge, I go to clean my windshield. No fluid comes out. Those fuckers, I think, they didn't refill my wiper fluid after they replaced the tank! Oh but no dear readers, NO! Those fuckers did indeed refill my tank, but what they didn't do was check the connections.

Yes, yes my friends...that's right. As I pushed the button to spray my windshield, the wipers did a happy little dry dance, and the fluid came out the back reservoir. Baffled I turned the knob to wash the back windshield and away the wipers went but the fluid sprayed on my front windshield.

WHO DOES THAT?!?!?!

Honestly.

Honestly, who else would this happen to but me? I seriously wish this were the end of the story...

The Lulu Saga...beginnings

If you haven't noticed by now, I give names to everything. Inanimate objects are my favorite things to name. The most popular things to name on my list are computers and cars...mostly because there are so many of both in my household.

My first car, The Tank was an '85 Ford Country Squire Station Wagon, complete with faux wood paneling. You're jealous, don't lie. The Tank is still around, it has literally become the garage meaning we drove it in and started piling things inside The Tank inside the garage. I have lofty plans of restoring The Tank come next year when it's technically a classic, but for now he waits, a sleeping giant.

My next car was the Hunter (seen in all his deliciousness right). Hunter is a 2000 Subaru Forester in, you guessed it, hunter green plus he has after-market wood detailing. I named him such after we found a rifle shell casing in the trunk that the detail guys missed. Hunter himself has been all penguined out and is still kicking around Virginia with Jason.

This year I bought a new car. A shiny black Subaru Outback Sport, when we first met I got inside, started the ignition and drove her off the lot. She said, "Hi, I'm Lulu!" To which I replied, "Hi Lulu, we're going to be good friends."

Lulu has been wonderful. She loves the snow and rain, has just enough trunk space for a long weekend getaway for two, and most importantly she's mine...all mine. I am very protective of Lulu, she is a lady after all and needs some taking care of. The Tank and Hunter were big gruff men and needed no tending to.

That being said, Lulu got her face knocked in, and I couldn't even be mad about it.

Let's jump back here a second. When I go up to Albany to visit my friends who are still living in the area after college, I typically spend most of my time with Laura and my now good friend Chrissy. Usually we park our cars at Chrissy's house and one of us volunteers to drive around town for the day. So I parked Lulu across the street from Chrissy's house in a little cut out near the dead end. This is where I always park when I'm at Chrissy's.

We have a fantastic evening and returned to Chrissy's house Sunday morning to go out together for breakfast. This is when a ridiculous series of events occurred within seconds of each other:

• We pile in Chrissy's car JeepJeep (yes she names her cars too)
• We're super excited and super hungry for breakfast
• Chrissy reverses out of her drive way
• Chrissy checks behind her to make sure the dog and little children haven't snuck out of the house
• JeepJeep comes to a screeching halt
• There is a violent shudder
• We all exchange glances thinking: wtf did we hit?!
• We all exchange glances realizing: shit, my car is back there!!!
• We all pile out of JeepJeep, Chrissy takes one look at Lulu and takes a minute by herself to tear her hair out
  

That being said, Lulu got her face knocked in, and I couldn't even be mad about it.

Chrissy is a ray of sunshine ALWAYS. I've seen the girl sad once in my life and within 10 minutes she's a ball of energy again. I love her dearly. Because of all of this and because of how horrible Chrissy felt, I couldn't be mad at her. In fact, all I could do was laugh.

There we stood, staring at Lulu with her headlight, bumper, and fender all mashed in...and all I could do was laugh!

After about a million phone calls (the least of which I wanted to make was the one to my father telling him my friend had hit my car in broad daylight accidentally), and with the help of Chrissy's Dad, we got Lulu's fender popped back out and zip-tied in place so I could drive the car over to the dealership and leave it to get taken care of. And then we had breakfast....well...lunch at this point.

Chrissy had to run off to work so Laura was kind enough to drop me off at the Poughkeepsie station so I could catch a cheap[er than Amtrak] train. So I finally get home after an hour in the car and a few hours on the Metro North train and another 40 minutes on the LIRR and my Dad meets me across the street from the station in the White Castle parking lot.

To put the icing on the cake, not only could I not be angry about my car being smashed and having to leave it in Albany for the week, but the backpack I borrowed from Laura to take on the trip home with me allowed my klean kanteen to slip out of the water bottle pouch on it. So that pissed me off a whole lot because I love my klean kanteen!

Tune in next time for another installment of the Lulu Saga!