As much as we loved our little VW we had to say good-bye to it. Amazingly so, it was not hard to depart with even though my husband is left with a beat up truck for his commuter car. Eric was in a collision that totaled the front of the car. Thankfully he was not hurt and instead walked away with nothing more then an upset stomach and a huge insurance bill.
The person in front of him was driving a shuttle van for the Oakland Airport so no damage was sustained. The ordeal that followed was almost worse then the actual accident.
Eric was towed to the nearest U-Haul store in downtown Oakland. Now, many of you have no idea what downtown Oakland is like. Some of you have heard stories but like me, have never chanced a visit to this very dark part of the bay area. He called me at 2:00 pm on October 28th and told me where to find him. I rushed over there with our Suburban not realizing that this was going to be a big help in the long run. We rarely drive the Suburban because it gets 9 miles to the gallon. Hmmmm...9 times $3.00 per gallon equals a huge amount of money. Anyway, when I got there Eric was on the phone with the corporate offices of U-Haul. Come to find out, the U-Haul store staff would not rent a car dolly to us because....well, there was no because. They had four in stock. We believe that we were being reverse-discriminated against. The corporate office people were as flabbergasted as we were. After being on a three way conference call with the store and corporate (where one was yelling at the other) Eric was put on hold. After a few minutes we were given the okay and proceeded to buy another ball for our hitch and another wire kit for lighting the car dolly. We hooked up the car to the dolly which, by the way, is very hard to do when you have a mess of a front end. Thankfully a man happened to be walking past and helped my husband push the car onto the dolly. I was not much help at all. There is much more animation to this story that I will not go into. Let's just say that if anyone thinks that driving in Rome, Italy is something they should try to drive in downtown Oakland. They are lawless in more ways then one.
I appreciate my husband's ability to save us money once more. He chose to tow the vehicle instead of paying $700 to have it towed to our house. He faced a group of women who were bound and determined that they would not rent to a white man. He knew how to do the whole towing thing and got it done quickly and safely. He willingly gave up a comfortable car and instead is driving a very loud truck so that we can save even more money for our upcoming adoption expenses. And, thanks to God Almighty, he is around for another day for us to appreciate him all the more.
The person in front of him was driving a shuttle van for the Oakland Airport so no damage was sustained. The ordeal that followed was almost worse then the actual accident.
Eric was towed to the nearest U-Haul store in downtown Oakland. Now, many of you have no idea what downtown Oakland is like. Some of you have heard stories but like me, have never chanced a visit to this very dark part of the bay area. He called me at 2:00 pm on October 28th and told me where to find him. I rushed over there with our Suburban not realizing that this was going to be a big help in the long run. We rarely drive the Suburban because it gets 9 miles to the gallon. Hmmmm...9 times $3.00 per gallon equals a huge amount of money. Anyway, when I got there Eric was on the phone with the corporate offices of U-Haul. Come to find out, the U-Haul store staff would not rent a car dolly to us because....well, there was no because. They had four in stock. We believe that we were being reverse-discriminated against. The corporate office people were as flabbergasted as we were. After being on a three way conference call with the store and corporate (where one was yelling at the other) Eric was put on hold. After a few minutes we were given the okay and proceeded to buy another ball for our hitch and another wire kit for lighting the car dolly. We hooked up the car to the dolly which, by the way, is very hard to do when you have a mess of a front end. Thankfully a man happened to be walking past and helped my husband push the car onto the dolly. I was not much help at all. There is much more animation to this story that I will not go into. Let's just say that if anyone thinks that driving in Rome, Italy is something they should try to drive in downtown Oakland. They are lawless in more ways then one.
I appreciate my husband's ability to save us money once more. He chose to tow the vehicle instead of paying $700 to have it towed to our house. He faced a group of women who were bound and determined that they would not rent to a white man. He knew how to do the whole towing thing and got it done quickly and safely. He willingly gave up a comfortable car and instead is driving a very loud truck so that we can save even more money for our upcoming adoption expenses. And, thanks to God Almighty, he is around for another day for us to appreciate him all the more.
No comments:
Post a Comment