Irony Becomes Her

Another Series of Unfortunate Events

My readers may remember the Fortunately/Unfortunately format of a post from last summer. This post could take that form, but in the true spirit of the evolving times, I will use the new and innovative dude-punctuated format.

Yesterday came one of the formidable but inevitable trials of life: paying the auto mechanic. My timing belt, air conditioning, and some mysterious noise all needed some attention from someone with skills beyond my own. LC gave it a look and took care of it all for a price I saw as pretty reasonable.

But what's reason got to do with it? First, the owner of the shop asked if there were any way other than credit that I could pay, since it took several days to get that money and they were out quite a bit for parts. I feared my checking account would not handle such a ding, so regretfully I told her I must use credit. She was kind and understanding, but it took three "unauthorized" swipes on the machine before she or I realized they actually don't accept that particular credit card. Dude.

All was not lost; I remembered right then that it was the first of the month. My automatic deposit paycheck came in today! Well, then, it would be no problem to use my debit card. "Unauthorized." Sometimes it takes a day or two to post to my account. Dude.

Not too long ago, I removed my checkbook from my purse because I rarely used it and it took up the valuable space I needed to lug around random bits of trash. Now my Taco Bell receipt and several old pieces of gum wadded in wrappers weren't going to help me as my checkbook would have. Dude.

So I went back to retrieve my checkbook and gird my loins for the next battle of payment methods. A half-hour later, the mechanic would see me again with a good check in hand. As I stuck my tongue between my teeth and scrawled out the name of the mechanic, Brandon pointed to a sign above my head: "NO CHECKS OVER $100." Dude.

The owner assured me that they would indeed accept my check and that I should bring the car back if I ran into any problems with it. All in all, they were very accommodating for someone so utterly impossible to accommodate.

Thank God we are the lucky species that is able to laugh. It made yesterday's escapades greatly enjoyable instead of mildly to heavily frustrating. We should never, ever shoot messengers, and it's a sin to kill a mockingbird.

posted by Lynn @ 6:48 AM