What a day

[monkey5s]

I guess it was a good thing that I wasn't able to get moving and go run errands like I intended. Instead, I only dragged myself down to Meijer in the afternoon. Because when I got back out to the car after shopping, it was dead. And, being Meijer, a woman passing by was happy to try calling my s-i-l on her cell phone.

Since I still don't have one.

Too bad she didn't answer.

So I went back into the store (taking the perishables with me instead of leaving them cooking in the car in 96-degree heat) and they let me use the manager's portable phone. I tried the s-i-l's cell phone, in case she was out somewhere. She still didn't answer. So I tried calling work, to see if someone there could keep trying the s-i-l.

Instead, the person who answered was nearly off work for the day, and she volunteered to drive down and rescue me (and my groceries). When we got up to my house, she helped carry things up to the door. The phone was ringing as I got there, and I missed that call, but checked and it was the s-i-l, calling on her cell phone. I hadn't bothered to leave a message, but the first woman who tried to help me did leave one.

Turns out they were in the Meijer's parking lot, in front of my car. My bro had been sitting at the computer and heard the message on the house phone, got the s-i-l up from her nap (apparently neither of them are feeling well at the moment), and drove down to Meijer's.

So. Big mess. They ended up going home, of course, and the s-i-l was terse, to say the least.

I went ahead and called Tuffy, where I have taken my car for service twice now. It's just around the corner from the Meijer's store, and I nearly asked my ride to stop there and let me go in and talk to the guy there, but I felt like it was already a massive imposition on her time, so I didn't. I described the problem, he said it was probably either the starter or the battery. He actually sent someone up to my town to get the car key, because if it was just the battery they could jump it and drive it to the shop to replace the battery. It was well past their regular hours when the guy got here, and the Tuffy manager called me back when they had the car there and got my OK to replace the battery and the very badly corroded terminal. He then drove my car up to get me, and we went back down to Tuffy and I managed to cobble together enough for the bill from three cards.

So. Customer for life for Tuffy there at that location. Even though I paid dearly for it, he got me back on the road within 2 hours of me calling him- with two 18-mile round trip drives in the mix.

So. Lessons from this escapade:

Must finally buy a cell phone.

Must figure out some way to smooth things over with s-i-l.

Must shop around for new car insurance- I was sold breakdown coverage with my insurance, but it turns out it's only reimbursement. You have to pay it all up front, then submit the bills and fight with them to pay you back. Which leads me to

Must find the money to get AAA now.

Must figure out something nice to do for the coworker who rescued me.

Comments

[readinggeek451]

You had a *lot* of very helpful people. Good for them!

If you want a cell phone just for emergencies, try a pay-as-you-go plan. I went with T-Mobile, because their PAYG minutes are good for 90 days instead of 30 like all the other companies. $10 buys 30 minutes, and if I remember to top it up again before the 90 days are up, they roll over indefinitely. I'm up over 4 hours by now.

[monkey5s]

I've been soliciting feedback from people about cell phones. The woman who gave me the ride went with a prepaid plan years ago, she said it's expensive per-minute, but her $100 once a year gives her minutes that she doesn't have to worry about rolling over every month- they're good for a year. Though you have to buy your own phone up front.

Another coworker swears by her TracPhone, low investment to start with and you have to keep buying more minutes, but they're low cost as you go. But, her first phone's ringer was broken, so she had to get a new phone and they didn't let her transfer the minutes on it to the new phone. So she carries two cell phones now, because if she has to make a call she does it on the old phone to use up the minutes, but if someone has to contact her they need to do it on the new phone, so...

[readinggeek451]

I could do $100 once a year, but it works out to more per year than does $10 every three months. I hardly ever use it, just for emergencies and occasionally while traveling, so my minutes keep adding up. Once I got up over $100-worth of accumulated minutes, they last a year anyway, even when I only add another $10.

The initial cost was $40, which included the phone and 10 starter minutes. I'm pretty sure you can transfer unused minutes to a new phone, but I haven't actually looked into it.

It also depends on what network has good service in your area. For that, you need to ask the people around you.