A Now It's Funny Tale

You know how sometimes it life you have things happen and say to each other, we'll laugh about this later?  We had one of those concerning the new car we bought.  It has taken me some time to get to the I'm laughing about it part though.  In the meantime I was not laughing at all.  I was in fact convinced it was the Universes way of telling us, "Bad idea" on buying the car. 

We bought this car during the weeks that were extra crazy busy for us so I was already on overload.  We lost some employees at work so work was extra crazy busy for me.  The car was in Clearwater which is at least two hours away.

The drive was pretty hectic for us, especially when we had to go after our work days which meant we were hitting other people's rush hour traffic in Tampa.  I am not a fan of this.  In fact, I've been known to freak out a bit in traffic like this.  But we wanted this car, so I made myself do it.  (I'm not driving here, only the passenger)

Once we got closer to Clearwater, it was a delightful drive.  You cross over water.  The mermaid in me was slightly satisfied to be that close to a real body of water.  It was beautiful.

So we made the trek there.  Took the bad along with the good.  I drove the truck back home, so I could not snap pictures this time except at traffic lights.  Swore a bit while driving but we made it.

Had the car at home.  Enjoyed it for one day.  The second day the top got stuck and wouldn't go back up.  Called the dealer.  Oh yeah, we knew there was a problem with the top but we thought we fixed it.  Bring it back in and we'll fix it right this time.  So we go after work again.  For a two hour drive each way.  Hit rush hour traffic again.   Hit the lovely part near Clearwater again.

So pretty, it was almost worth the second drive over.  NOT!

Left our car.  Brought home a loaner car.  Made it home just fine.  Few days later got a call saying our car was ready to pick up.  I am beat so Nathan offers to go pick it up alone this time.  So he heads over for the THIRD trip in one week's time to Clearwater.  So much for the car saving us lots of gas money. 

I am scrapbooking and get a text message from Nathan that lets me know he just had a flat tire.  With the loaner car.  He hasn't even made it to our car yet.  Before I can even respond with great sympathy he sends me another saying that the spare tire now has a flat.  Wow.  Really??????

Calls the dealer who tells him to drive on the rim until he can get to a tire place.  Shows us at the tire place just in time to get a new tire.  Sends me this picture:

At this point, we are not sure who is crying harder, us or the car dealer.  He got the tire fixed and got the car to the dealer.  Dealer lets him know how much money he has lost on the deal.  We feel bad.  A little.  He then picks up our car and made it home.  At one a.m.  We pray this is the end of this nightmare.

What makes all of this even funnier to us now is that at the very same time we decided to go ahead and fix our golf cart and after replacing the batteries we discovered there was something else wrong with it.  So we were also transporting the golf cart back and forth to the repair guy.  We had to borrow a trailer in order to transport the golf cart.  Oh yeah, big time fun there too. 

To add even more irony to this fun fest, I had just been telling someone how I was considering getting rid of the golf cart because it was just one more thing to take care of, be responsible for and have to spend money on.  That I felt our lives becoming less simple because of adding more things to it.  Cue Twilight Zone music.

I'm happy to report both mechanical devices are working beautifully and we have been enjoying them very much.  And I really am laughing about it now.

Mostly, that is.

Just a plug for the car dealership that did right by us: Regal Cars of Florida Inc.  They seriously rocked and made the nightmare as smooth as it possibly could have been.  We highly recommend them!

I really, really hope this is The End.