This is a post I began several months ago and never finished. I had already chosen to loosen up my blawgprose back then, but I lost interest when it came to finding a perfect ending, and never finished this particular entry. So, what with the advent of my new no-cares-it attitude, I’ll just post it unfinished and dangling. Oh, and in case you’re wondering, I don’t notice anything wrong with the car now. 🙂
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The wife’s car got suckerpunched right in the nose–or maybe it was the jaw–by a repair van back in January, and we just picked up the golden chariot from the body shop today. It only took a week in the shop but there was a two week waiting list before that, three weeks of waiting for the worthless appraisal company to send a fool out before that and two weeks of trying to get the insurance company to talk to us before that.
I make up false names for most of the people and institutions I write about (yes, I made a conscious decision not to say ‘about which I write.’ From here on out my blawgs will be completely informal rather than just mostly so), so I’ll call Federated Insurance Suckmaster Enterprises. That’s because they suck. And because they’re good at it.
Suckmaster approved 94% of the estimate provided by the body shop, but they picked all kinds of tiny nits about labor and paint details, etc., and one large one about the bumper. Simply put, since the golden chariot was more than a couple years old, they refused to buy a new bumper for us. It was only a $75 difference, and one we should have just paid out-of-pocket to avoid having a remanufactured bumper installed. But Suckmaster and I both balked about the various principles with which we independently identified, so the course was followed as originally set.
When we arrived at the body shop we saw the golden chariot peeking out from an adjacent parking, so the first thing we did was to inspect its new jaw. I’m sure that 90-95% of the rest of the world’s population (those who own vehicles and are concerned with the outward appearance of them anyway) would have been pleased as seven flavors of punch with the results. I, on the other hand… well, let’s just say that I found some flaws, and griped about each of them in turn.
Yes, I am a perfectionist, and work done by me must be absolutely perfect. 30 second emails take three minutes to compose. The first 20 pages of my novel took 32 years. The list could go on, but I’ve used up all the good examples. Point being, I’m totally and completely OCD about the appearance of certain things. Other things… well, I’m bothered by mess, but most of the time it’s not enough for me to want to do something about it. The inside of my car is a pig sty and the outside isn’t much better. My office is a mess. Everything around me is a mess. But ask for a report or a design from me and it’ll come back flawless.