Real-Life Terror

Let's talk about why I'm inches away from twenty to life for aggravated manslaughter, shall we?  Because this past week (other then GenCon, which I'll get to later) was a fucking nightmare.

So, my buddy, Dave is already at GenCon and his wife says to me, she says, "Hey, I wanna go, too."  And I say "I would like to go.  Let's go."  So we go.

Life is excellent until about 30 miles out of Indianapolis, when I get a temperature warning.  I figure it's the anti-freeze so I stop to top it off.  No big, right?

Yeah, no.

Ten miles LATER, I'm at the side of the road with a smoking engine, assholes with iPhones hanging out their windows taking pictures, 2 police cars, an ambulance and a fire truck (even though there was no actual fire) waiting for a tow truck that the police called because I DON'T HAVE GOOD RECEPTION!  Please note, this is 7 o'clock on a Friday night.  There's no place open at that time.  This totally has a slasher setup and I'm not pleased.

I manage to get it towed to the nearest Pep Boys, because they have weekend hours unlike any other sane business.  This last statement is not, in any way, meant to indicate that the Pep Boys corporation is "sane".

So, yeah.  I tell myself that it's out of my hands and go to enjoy myself at GenCon.  I figure it'll be done the next day and I can go on with my life.

It's not.

So, OK.  They have Sunday hours.  Fine.  Do your fucking job.

And then I get a call.

They went to pressurize my cooling system and blew out my anti-freeze plug.  It's a quarter-sized piece of metal that, for some unholy reason, THEY CAN'T GET THEIR HANDS ON!  At this time, I'm PISSED but there's nothing I can do.  My friends take me to a hotel down the street and three fucking days of mind-numbing tedium begin.

But WAIT!  There's a light at the end of the tunnel.  They call me the next morning and tell me I'm good to go.  They replaced the water pump, the timing belt and a whole bunch of other stuff in the immediate vicinity.  I go get the car and I pack up and I head on my way.

That light I mentioned?  Is my temperature gauge ten miles later.

Because I'm still leaking anti-freeze, y'see.

And THEN, I get to wait TWO FUCKING HOURS for a tow truck to bring me back there because, dammit, these people are going to fix my car and they're going to fix it right.  It takes them until 7 PM on Tuesday to tell me that it's done and I go to drive it and the check engine light pops on and I think there's still a leak.  Those were minor and they were resolved quickly.

I drive home yesterday without a problem but after tooling around a bit, I start to get the temperature light again.

FUCKING LIVID!

So, the local Pep Boys thinks it's a bad sensor and it's with them now while I have a rental in the meantime.

Fortunately, I didn't have to pay for any of the repairs after Monday (which basically involved replacing anything ELSE in my cooling system that they didn't get to, before, including my radiator) but I still want my car back.

I'm NEVER going to recommend Pep Boys.  Ever.  And they had BETTER make this right or I'm going to call a lawyer.

So, there's my horror story.  It hasn't ended, yet and if it doesn't end SOON there will be blood and tears.

Let's talk about some of the awesomeness of GenCon, though.

I'm a gamer-nerd and GenCon is the bestest place EVER because I get to shop.  I pre-ordered Cthulhu Wars, got the new Shadowrun and a zombie RPG called Outbreak (designed by  Ivan Van Norman from King of the Nerds) and some CthulhuTech sourcebooks as well as some nifty costume pieces and some REALLY nice pieces of luggage (yeah, I know, but nerds need to carry stuff, too).  If you ever get the chance to go to a huge convention, try it at least once.  I love them.  I'm only sad that I don't get to go to Dragon*Con this year.