Derby Party, Weekend

Ali and I got an invite to go to a Kentucky Derby Party by one of the people in our running club.  It’s being held at what I assume is an upscale Boat & Yacht country club.  Ali’s initial assumption was I would not want to go, a foo foo derby party isn’t the sort of thing I would normally be interested in.  Eh, I figured it was something different, a chance to meet and interact with new people, something we do very rarely, why not?  I am not quite sure what goes on at a Kentucky Derby party.  Will there be illegal gambling, ample alcohol and derby bonnets flying left and right?  I have no idea really what to expect.  The only negative is it is Saturday evening, we have to time a race Sunday.

So I took the van to the dealer yesterday.  When I dropped it off I added a list of things I wanted them to look at on top of the dead fan blower.  I told Jeff, my very high strung and fast talking service advisor that I would like them to look at the starting problem, the side door that only opens from the inside, the thermostat and to change the oil.  Since we will be putting another 5-6k miles on the van in a month or so I figured I should get all of this taken care of. Jeff told me they would call me with what they find.

So I got a call later in the morning from Jeff and he starts quickly rattling off numbers, $250 for this $200 for that, $125 for this….. Woah, slow down there bud, let’s start over.  He told me the fan blower was bad and was $250 to fix, ok fine, do that. Next the starting problem is the solenoid on the starter, $110 to fix that, ok check do that.  The thermostat issue is actually low coolant level in the radiator.  We can do a complete coolant flush for $125.  (Buzzer sound) No thanks, can handle that one myself.  To fix the side door, $250.  Woah, how much is just the part for the door? “$120”  $130 labor for something I know I can do myself? No thanks, I’ll just buy the part and fix the door myself.  So Jeff now had his marching orders.  I verified that they could get it all done today, he assured me that would be no problem. Ok great, doing sloppy math in my head I figured a $600-$700 bill was in my future.

I threw my road bike in the van in the morning so I had a mode of transportation to get to the gym.  I found that riding it to the gym took approximately the same time as it does in the truck since the entire commute is through parking lots.  It was kinda cool to ride to the gym.

So around 3 o’clock I hadn’t heard from hyper Jeff yet.  I called and asked how things were going on the van repairs.  Jeff told me that they did not have the fan blower or one of the parts for the door repair in stock.  He said they had the van all ripped apart and asked if I could leave it there overnight.  His pace of speech was so fast and frantic I found myself feeling anxious and hyper just talking to him.  I told Jeff that I hadn’t made any plans to leave it there overnight but I would see if I could work something out.  Luckily Ali was able to swing over after work and take me home as well as dragging herself out of bed to bring me back to work today.  For some reason I have a feeling this saga has not seen it’s last moments of drama yet.