Shallow Thinker

There’s an old joke about lawyers.  Well, actually, there are a lot of old jokes about lawyers, but I’m thinking of one in particular.  “97% of lawyers give the good 3% a bad name.”  I think that the same thing applies to car dealerships.  I despise their tactics and try to avoid them at all cost.  An experience last week helped me shift from “disdain” to “hatred” on that scale.

We received a recall notice on a part of our van.  It wasn’t anything major, but it was something that had become annoying.  I thought (and this is probably where I went wrong…thinking) that since a shop would have it, I would have them go ahead and change the oil and rotate the tires.  I normally have the tires and oil done at a Raffield Tire near our house, and they do good work, but I’m already taking some work time to put it in the shop for warranty work so I  might as well get it all done in one pass.  My logic made sense going into it…right?

I dropped the vehicle off at the dealer closest to my work (Lowe Toyota in Warner Robins) and discussed what I needed done.  Warranty work, oil and tires, and I needed them to look at the radio.  The CD player had ceased functioning, so since they are the dealer, they should have some concept of how to fix it.  I had a slight sticker shock at what the oil and tire rotation would cost.  But, I had to factor in missing more time from work, so I decided to let them go ahead with it.  I got a ride the 0.25 miles to work (it was raining) and went on about my day.

About an hour into it, I got a call from the service department.  My air filter needed to be replaced.  My brakes needed to be cleaned.  My air-conditioner needed to be recharged.  They listed about five things that I “really needed” to have done to my van.  The total for these items was over $300.  The cost to repair the radio came back at a minimum of $400.  ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!

I told them to do the oil, tires, and warranty work and let me have my car back.  Before I went to pick it up, I called Ken’s Stereo to find out how much it would cost just to replace the radio with a new one.  Prices start at $100 and go up to $200 for a “nice one.”  Half the price of the dealer.  And that doesn’t account for what the dealer told me about having to take the old one out, send it off to some random place, and I’d have to drive around without one until it got repaired.

I drove off frustrated that I spent what I did for the oil and tires.  But the saga was over….right?  No, about 3 hours later, someone else from the dealer called me to see if I was happy with my service.  I didn’t even get to answer before she stated that they were running a “deal” that weekend and wanted to know if they could count on me to come by and check out the new cars.  WHAT?!  I took my car in for service and you take this as an sign that I want to buy a new car from you?  I tried to be cordial with my response, but apparently there was enough abrasiveness left in my tone that she got the message loud and clear.

I know that these tactics are nothing new, but seriously car dealers, are you trying to put the nails in the coffin?  Years ago, a brand meant something, and retailers took advantage of that with their pricing and their methods.  The news is plastered with stories about how much the auto industry is in decline yet they’re still trying these stupid, annoying, childish games.  Those methods are finally coming back to haunt these guys.  I’m not necessarily happy that the auto industry is in the dumps, but I sure understand why it is.  By comparison, Raffield is a stand-alone company with no financial backing from a brand name.  They treat their customers like people who can walk away at any time, as opposed to money machines that should be taken for all they’ve got.

Want to know what’s worse?  One these two companies is begging our governement for money because they just can’t find a way to make ends meet.  Want to take a guess…?

I like to working outside in the yard.  One of the best kind of tireds is one from having accomplished a lot of yard work.  There are only two problems with this.  (1) I’m allergic to about 98.3% of outside and (2) I usually have no clue what I’m doing.  The clouds parted momentarily this weekend, so I seized the opportunity breathe in some more allergens and to demonstrate my lack of landscaping skill/knowledge.

We have a faucet by our deck that likes to leak on occasion.  Because of this, water pools around the area and provides a safe haven for weeds and mud.  An area that originally looked very pretty with river rocks and landscaping timbers has turned into a mucky mess over the past 2-3 years.  With my yard tools and my “helpful” daughters by my side, I decided to lay some stepping stones to help with the problem.

The first order of action was to remove the old rocks and weeds.  I actually started this last weekend, but went inside at one point to run a small errand and didn’t return.  The vacant rocks and torrential rains made this area a nice mud puddle.  So, Butterfly helped me get a bunch of sand to help even out the ground and give me something to work with.

There are several “secrets” to laying stones in the yard like this.  One of these is having an even surface.  I know that somewhere in my brain, I can figure out a way to make a surface even.  However, my brain wasn’t available for this project, so I went with the “rake-the-sand-until-it-looks-good” technique.  For your home projects, I recommend a different technique.  Doesn’t matter which one it is, it just needs to be different than this one.

The lattice that is visible along the bottom portion of the deck is actually a door.  It hinges at the top and allows me (as well as small critters) to get to the crawl space under the house.  The entry is  just beyond the view of these photographs.  Unfortunately, the door was sized for reaching the ground, so adding stones keeps the door from opening.  I did a quick feasibility study and concluded that ripping the door off would be a good solution.  I hope to make a smaller door and install it later.  I also hope someone will hand me a million dollars later this afternoon.  I don’t expect either of these to happen.

After I “leveled” the sand and put down some landscaping fabric, it was time to put some rocks out.  This was easy because it required more grunt work than brains.  For a real stone installation, the installer would have some type of grout between the rocks.  I, however, do not think that I’m all that great of an installer and I fully expect something to go wrong in the near future.  So, instead of concrete grout, I decided that sand would work.  It fills in the cracks and allows water to seep/drain as needed.  More importantly, it’s easy to work with when I have to pull the stones up to fix something that I discover later down the road.  This is part of the project when Butterfly’s attention waned towards the playground and Ladybug decided to join me.

Ladybug grabbed her child-sized wheel barrow and followed me to get a load of sand.  I put some in for her to carry back, but she quickly caught on to my ploy and said “It too heavy, Daddy.  Daddy carry it.”  We made it back and while I put sand around the area, Ladybug busied herself by hiding my tools in the sand, followed by “making cookies” with the nearby dirt and rocks.  She continually offered these to the dogs as a snack.

Prior commitments caused me to stop a little before the project was completed.   Here’s what it looked like when we put the tools down.   Pippin doesn’t seem to mind it too much.  Ladybug is still trying to feed Merry some of her sand cookies.

What is this water falling from the sky?  Seems like it’s been years since we’re experienced this odd phenomenon.  And not only is if falling from the sky, but it’s beginning to puddle up on the ground, too!  The past few summers have been very dry.  Heck, even the governor of Georgia decided that he should help us out by praying for rain.  So, when it rains this much for this long, you’d think that people would take notice.  You’d think that people would drive a little more careful when the slick stuff hits the pavement.  No.  That would make sense and we don’t like to make sense around these parts.

But, even with the stupid drivers and the associated wrecks, the rain brings a little more humor.  We’ve had rain every day for almost a week.  The local river is above flood stages.  There’s six inches of standing water on the interstate.  I can catch fish in my front yard.  Yet today, the local water authority decided to send out their reminder that there is a watering restriction in place.  Good thing. I was just about to go hose down the lawn.  I know how much better the grass grows when it’s seven inches under water instead of five and a half.