Bob 'n' Rita's Awful Adventure

                                                     

Well, that's what we were supposed to be seeing last Tuesday at The New York Botanical Garden! The amazing and inspiring polka-dot vision of Yayoi Kusama. A "funny" thing happened on the way to the Botanic Garden...

And it was such a perfect day! Warm and sunny; we were cruising down Route 684 (with a load of Bob's now famous peony rings to be delivered to the Botanical Garden), merging onto the Hutchinson River Parkway when POW!!! there was a huge boom. Don't ask me how Bob carefully steered the truck onto the highway edge as he had little control. The only thing that really saved us from a huge pile up was that traffic had slowed to a crawl at the merge. We both thought "flat tire" but when I carefully crawled out of the passenger door and peered around all sides of the truck, no flat was to be seen. I called AAA.

(That's my jacket on the highway rail.) The cars are zooming past us at a million miles an hour, I'm trying to hear what AAA is telling me and I'm this close to having a major meltdown. All I can decipher is: 1.) Because of COVID, you can't ride with the tow truck operator in the cab so you'd better call an Uber or a Lyft 2.) I've been connected to the police (!?!?!) in Westchester and 3.) come to find out that the Hutch is a "private" road, owned by the State of New York and they don't allow just any old tow trucks on it. There is only one contracted tow company. (Mob connections anyone?)

So now we're waiting for a police person (*1) and a tow truck and wondering WTF we're going to do. The police man shows up and is perfectly nice and sympathetic. When I ask him if we're going to be abandoned at the side of this busy highway he says no, he'll give us a ride to a train station or the towing place or a car rental office. We opt for the car rental as I have no idea how to hail an Uber.

 After the tow truck driver arrives, he says we can have the truck pulled off the highway and "dropped" (like somewhere random at the side of some road) or taken to the tow place in New Rochelle. We've been assured that AAA reimburses us for this tow. Okay take it there, we'll have AAA pick it up and tow it to the garage we use in Connecticut. The police officer delivers us to the Enterprise car rental company-  it's my first ever ride in a police car! and he's driving at like a zillion miles and weaving in and out of traffic. We're all smooshed in the (very hard!) back seat and Bob points out there's no handles on the door; I guess so that we couldn't get out if we were criminals. We do get to the car rental and surprisingly, this goes without a hitch. They rent us a vehicle remarkably like our broken one: a red truck. (This encounter has a moment of levity when Bob and I prepare to drive home in said rental truck but we can't figure out how to operate it it. There's no shift lever. I go back into the rental office to explain that we're beyond old school, drive standard shifts and have (ahem) absolutely no idea how to get the car moving. (I'm sure they had a good laugh at our expense!)

Bob driving rental truck. We were afraid to touch anything as it was all computerized and foreign. I finally stopped shaking and drooling and yes, we made it home. Then began my several hour, truly Byzantine effort to get the damned truck back.

(This was affixed to the dashboard. Don't ask me why but I became fixated on reading it over and over and over again. I guess I was nervous enough to think maybe Clorox could wipe away our truck troubles! So I took a nonsense photo...)

 A funny detail is that we thought to call the Botanical Garden and offer that they could pick up the peony rings (which they really wanted/needed as they'd already been sold!) at the tow place in New Rochelle. They actually went and got them so at least that part of our mission was accomplished! (*2) 

Anyway, I call AAA and try (key word) to get them to say simply, "Yes, we'll tow your truck" but there's the small obstacle that we're here and the truck is there and there's the tow fee that needs to be paid. So I call Safeway Towing and the gentleman (who sounds like Tony Soprano) says, "We don't accept credit cards over the phone no more. It's gotta be paid in person in cash or a credit card." He says, "Make arrangements." We tried everything... why did I think that AAA would simply cover that $200 and I'd reimburse them with a credit card? Sounds simple? Nope. Their suggestion was that we drive back down to New Rochelle (!!??!?!!?!) and pay the fee. (*3) So I recall Safeway, talk to another (very nice) guy who tells me to find out which local garage is going to tow the truck and "make arrangements" with them. I finally did find out that C & C in New Rochelle would pick up the truck. But AAA didn't seem to "get" that the lovely woman at C & C had AGREED to front the $200 tow charge and we'd reimburse them here in Connecticut. (*4) This took several hours on the phone with the totally unhelpful AAA woman continuously insisting that she was NOT a supervisor and could never approve this. I repeatedly said that AAA was not even involved- except for scheduling the call to C & C and could I please talk to a supervisor?!??!!?!?!? 

Finally I got a more informed supervisor (Greg) who straightened everything all out in one quick phone call to C & C. Our truck was released and got a ride home to Southbury on the back of a truck. Bob met the driver at our garage, gave him the $200 and that was that!

We spent the evening admiring our own Botanical Garden, complete with flowering Magnolias and sculpture, courtesy of Bob. But we were spent! Drained! But yes! Glad to be home, safe and having- in an odd way- completed our initial mission. The truck is still awaiting repair. Apparently, the entire back end sort of blew up! (*5)

(*1) Hate to say it, but both Bob and I turned to one another and said, "I guess I'm glad we're not Black" because after all the nightmare stories of Black citizens being shot when pulled over for minor things, we realized how much safer we are being White. Sad, isn't it?

(*2) Funny how this part came off without a hitch. The two guys sent from the Botanical Garden simply drove up and transferred the metal work from our truck to theirs. I was sure that the towing company would say something like, "We can't release any property from your vehicle without written permission." But they just let the work go. Surprising.

(*3) Does that make sense to anyone??!?

(*4) Blessing on the lovely woman at C & C who said they'd do this; all we had to do was meet the tow driver at our local garage and give him $200. AAA made so much complication and this woman just cut through the crap!!! And she told me I wasn't the only one having trouble with AAA.

(*5) And I have some questions for AAA: we have a "gold", upgraded plan with 100 miles of towing and we still couldn't get towed? Please send us a list of roads that you do service so we can avoid the limited service roads in the future! And it didn't help that one "supervisor" that I talked to LAUGHED at me when I suggested I pay AAA with my credit card and they have their driver pay the tow company. I was furious as well as incredulous. "You're LAUGHING?"I said, "I'm entirely stressed, our trucks somewhere in New Rochelle and we're in Connecticut and you think this is FUNNY!??!" Talk about lack of empathy! I always had such good experiences with AAA but this trip prompted a different response from me. Corporate, unimaginative and really unhelpful!