Sunday 18 February 2018

Adventures in waiting at a dealership while your mother's car gets recall notices resolved

Saturday morning 10:00am dealership appointment that I was early by half an hour. I dislike being late and they booked me in early. It was recall work and I did not expect them to treat it like it was high priority. I figured they would have it for the day. They guy that booked me was was excellent. The weird thing was that he really looked like Paul Giamatti. He could have passed for his twin. I wonder if Paul Giamatti is in Edmonton working at KIA dealership to research an upcoming movie role.

I was slightly surprised mom let me take her car in. Mom has this paranoia that I am going to destroy her car that she is in love with in some kind of horrible accident. I have this sneaky suspicion she is more concerned about the car than me should that ever happen. However after all these years she might think I am capable of doing stuff for her without something catastrophic occurring. 

So I had to entertain myself for several hours. I wandered onto the showroom floor which was a mistake. At that time of day the ratio of salespeople to people like me was about five to one. I am guessing that the dealership was looking for some kind of hip young edgy feel to it. There were a few hipster types. One looked like he shopped at Goodwill and not in the good section. No one wore an actual suit. A different guy walked up to me and sported something that was not quite a ponytail or a man bun. I politely brushed him off. Just about everyone hit me up within minutes. None of these guys in sales looked like someone I would be confident or comfortable buying a car from them. All looked like they never changed a tire in their life. A few I doubted even had a driver's license. When did salespeople stop looking like salespeople? The Asian lady in sales looked the most competent. I overheard that the lot attendant could not drive a stick shift. After viewing this group I was questioning if the mechanics knew what they were doing.

Thankfully a guy who I knew from a Facebook group met me for coffee. We had messaged  each other before over the last year. He lives in Edmonton so we met for the first time. We discussed photography, abandoned sites, and even fit in some Alberta politics. It killed about ninety minutes. The rest of the time was spent at book store that was in walking distance.

I got the car back just before 4:00pm when they shut down for the day. Everything was  taken care of and they even washed the car. The service guy, the Paul Giamatti lookalike, that I booked in with went over everything and was great. Mom was happy to get her car back in one piece. I even filled it up for her. 


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