Dropped off Udo to have his oil changed and his fluids looked at, 8 am. Was told there'd be a couple hours wait due to previous jobs in queue, thought "fine, I can go kill a couple hours."
Went to the hospital and got coffee and read some of Michael Palin's diaries until pharmacy opened; moseyed on up to pharmacy to collect refill on happy pills #2. Much droll amusement regarding fact that they were charging me $380-some for 90 days worth of bupropion HCl. Pharmacist: *:0 face* "You don't ordinarily pay that much, right?" Me, sputtering: "....No. In fact I think my last copay on this scrip was $0."
One call to prescription insurance lady later we have a laugh to find that the pharmacy's new computer system has magically charged me for the name brand rather than the generic, a total of $500-some before insurance. Several pharmacists gather around the computer terminal and push buttons in a hopeful sort of way, and eventually they get it right and send me away with a $0 copay. And possibly a mild heart attack.
Back to hospital to kill another hour before wandering back to mechanics' and inquiring after Udo; found they'd actually not done him yet. They were extremely apologetic (despite fact they'd originally quoted me a couple of hours wait) and took him right away. I double-checked with them that they knew he took stupid picky special oil and they said oh yes, we see a lot of VWs here, and proceeded to put him up on the lift and get on with it.
(Cars look so forlorn with their wheels dangling like that.)
Maybe 20 minutes later they hand me my keys, having checked all the fluids as well as doing the oil, for a grand total of $27.00. And then as I'm leaving they say "oh and here's our gift to you, have a wonderful holiday" and hand me a little tin of danish butter cookies.
There are not enough :3s in the world.
Then I get back into Udo and the guy's moved the seat, of course, and I find I have considerable difficulty getting it to lock back into place so I can reach the pedals. Eventually I get it feeling sort of solid and head home. As I'm coming down Lombard in front of the nursing school the seat comes loose from its moorings and slides glibly backward, causing me to have a much bigger heart attack and clutch desperately at the wheel to stop from losing control altogether. Managed not to stall or grind gears, and drove the rest of the way home holding myself and the driver's seat steady by clinging to the wheel.
Of course once parked he seemed to be happy to lock his seat back properly but Jesus motherhumping Christ there is nothing quite like that boneless feeling of total loss of control. Now I know how the poor dude felt who wrecked that cherry 69 Mustang Mach 1 on my parents' street: he was in a wheelchair and drove the van via hand controls, and his wheelchair came unmoored and he was totally unable to stop the van sliding backward and crushing a bunch of other cars. Thank fortune nobody was behind me and it was a relatively flat bit of road.
Anyway, oil change sorted, now on to worrying about something else, such as how the fuck to clean this pigsty without engaging local crackheads to carry away all the bits of paper and bandaid wrappers and ciggie packets and orphan socks and so on.
Happy 31.
ReplyDelete-Nina.