Out in the cold

The good news: I neither crashed my car nor showed up a half an hour late to work today as I've done seemingly every other Wednesday this month.

The bad news: I went out at 8 to start and scrape off my car. I got in, started the engine, and got out. When I went to open the back door to get out my scraper, I realized that the back door was locked. As was the front door. And all of the rest of them. This kind of thing sucks donkey balls for about 80 different reasons, but the worst one is that my car doesn't let you lock the door when the key is in the ignition, and I never even TRIED to lock the door, and yet somehow it still happened. The one saving grace in this whole situation was that Becky had a snow day; if she hadn't been home, I would have been locked out of both my car AND my house with my purse and phone trapped inside of my running vehicle.

So I rang the doorbell 50 times and Becky came down to let me in. I used her phone to call Pop-A-Lock. (I don't have a spare car key at the apartment because I figured that generally if I can't get in my car, I can't get in my apartment either, and Becky's not home all that often. So the spare is at my parents' house. Not helpful.) Pop-A-Lock informed me that they would be at my house in AT MOST 45 minutes, and took my address, name, and phone number. So I waited 45 minutes. And then I waited 20 more. And then I called the company back. They told me that the roads were bad and that there were a lot of calls, and that they'd be there shortly. So I waited another....hour and a half. And called them a third time, at which point they finally contacted the driver to find out where the hell he was. Apparently they had added a silent K to the beginning of my street name, and the driver, unable to find me in his GPS, had been driving around aimlessly for two and a half hours. And no one had called to let me know, or bothered to inform me when I called the first time. The dispatcher said that he did not have the authority to authorize any kind of discount on the service (obviously I asked) and that I would have to speak with the driver about that; he assured me that the driver would be there in 10 minutes.

A half an hour later, the driver showed up. He popped the lock in about 3 minutes, tops. At this point my car had been running with the heat on full blast for three and a half hours. The driver then presented me with a bill for $45 dollars, which I informed him that I would not be paying. He told me that he did not have the authority to give a discount, and that I would have to talk to a dispatcher about that. When I told him that the dispatcher had told me the exact opposite thing, he kind of shrugged and held up the bill. I was all, "Do you take checks?" and he's like, "Cash or charge only." So I gave him my Discover card, and looked at me, knowing I was already so pissed off, and said "Uh...we only take Visa or Mastercard." "WELL THIS IS ALL I HAVE." Heh heh. He wrote down the number anyway and left.

I ended up calling the company back for the FOURTH time that day and basically saying that I was NOT paying for their service. I got put on with a manager who eventually agreed with me. I have never been so freaking pissed off at a company before. I understand that things happen, but to never contact me ONCE when a driver takes THREE HOURS to get here is unacceptable. As is misspelling my street name which I SPELLED FOR THE GUY OVER THE PHONE THE FIRST TIME. I ended up missing a full day of work today, which I have never done before in my life, and I feel really bad about it. Like I said before, I don't even know how the damn car got locked, so it's extra infuriating. I strongly suggest that no one ever call Pop-A-Lock to get your car unlocked. And I will very shortly be making about 900 copies of my car key to keep....well, everywhere.