Major "Ka-Ching!"

The following, in slightly different form, appeared in today's New York Times:

A. Bart Giamatti, the former baseball commissioner and avid Red Sox fan, once said that Fenway Park was the place to understand Calvinism in America, to learn that people sometimes fail and that failure can build character. "There's a crack in Calvinism now," said Leslie Epstein, a novelist who is chairman of the creative writing department at Boston University and whose son, Theo, is Red Sox general manager. "Now, we're going to have to find something else. Maybe Bostonians will be secretly wishing for a Kerry loss so they can wail about that."

But enough about baseball, already. This afternoon, I picked up my car from Buckhead Jeep while I was out running around in my rented Buick LaSabre doing work stuff. The cost to repair the window that wouldn't stay up and that had been held in place with duct tape since last Friday was going to be about $230 (ka-ching!). As long as they were inside the door, I also had them fix the lock (the keyless entry wasn't working) - another $180 (ka-ching!). That's $410 (ka-ching!) - before tax (ka-ching!). But as long as they had it in the shop, I took their advice and got the oil changed, filters replaced, differential serviced, etc., as well as a full tune up (points, sparks, timing, etc.) so that the total, including the $410 for the door, was about $1,300(ka-ching!). But it got worse.

All that was last Wednesday. After the maintenance was done, while they were out test driving the car, they heard a "funny noise" from the underbody and checked it out - it turns out that the power transfer unit was shot and needed major repair, including a new transfer case. The part alone was over $1,000 (ka-ching!), and wasn't even in stock. They said that it would be Friday (today) before they could even get the part delivered.

At first, it all sounded like bullshit to me, and I resisted getting the repair done, but the Service Rep kept insisting that I could do what I wanted, but he wouldn't recommend actually driving the car around with the transfer the way it was. It could go out at any time, he warned, leaving me suddenly in a powerless car, say, on the highway, or alone late at night. So I told him to go ahead and do it.

So instead of renting the Buick LaSabre for one day (Wednesday) for about $40, I had to rent it for three days at a total cost of $140 (ka-ching!). After turning the car in to Enterprise, I walked back up Piedmont Road to Buckhead Jeep to bail out my car. I knew it was all going to be expensive - I was expecting it to be about $3,400 - but when I went to the cashier, with service and all, she wanted a little over $4,000 (ka-ching!)! I talked and haggled with the Service Rep for a while, and he knocked about $150 off the price, bringing it just under $4,000. Now, $150 might not sound like much, especially considering the total size of the bill, but on any other day of the week $150 is a lot of money, and I wanted my car back, so I took what I could get, and gave the cashier my MasterCard and paid up.

I feel like I've been raped. It's nice to have good credit, though . . .