New car

On January 28 we emerged from our San Francisco apartment after weeks of rain and sickness. We were looking forward to a day of birding; but first, a 3-block climb up a steep hill to our car. As we approached, we observed the familiar pileup of parking tickets. Upon closer inspection, we noticed that the hood was slightly ajar and there was random junk on the passenger seat. Sigh, an SF classic.

We were assessing the damage when a well-meaning street resident walked over. He told us that on Friday night he watched a boy in a big ol’ hoodie screw around with our car for half an hour while the alarm was blaring. I thought the car was stolen and he was the owner, he explained. And that he had lost the key somehow, he added.

Ah, okay, we said. ???????? we thought.

We tried unsuccessfully to start the car. We called the police; they said they’d dispatch someone; we asked for an ETA. They said they didn’t give those and hung up. We looked at average response times and thought we were in for a 2 hour wait.

3 hours later, we gave up on the police and called AAA. Well, actually we filled out AAA’s online form, where we repeatedly selected “Car doesn’t start” as our issue and were continually assigned a tech who would “fix our battery.” After cancelling a few times, we managed to get ahold of a human who asked for a tow destination. We didn’t know right then, so she said to call back. Mark found an autobody (“Stress-Free Auto Care”) open on Sunday. Then we called the number the AAA agent gave us, which directed us to the generic AAA hotline. We pressed 0 and prayed. We retold our story to a completely different agent who finally assigned us a tow.

As we waited, Sidney received a call from the autobody. How did they get her number? She picked up and was told that the tow truck had arrived at the autobody to tow a car to our home. Uh, sorry, that’s weird, she said to the autobody manager. Exactly, he said.

We were eventually able to reroute the tow to our car. As he was about to drive off, we asked if he knew where to park the car. He walked away, then came back and gave us his phone. Hello, how is your day going? said a voice on the phone.

Good? said Sidney. Who are you?

I am friend, he said. How can I help you?

I don’t know, said Sidney. She gave back the phone, and tried talking to the AAA tech in Spanish. It was established that he knew where to park and he drove off.

Given how our day was going, we decided to hop in a Lyft and follow, just in case our car somehow ended up at our house, or AAA headquarters, or something. It made it to the autobody, and we personally handed off the key to the manager just as the shop was closing. Thanks, Larry, for waiting up.

Later that night, we got a call back from the police. Sorry we didn’t make it, there was a 49ers game today, they said. Can you come into the station?

Uh, can we just file a report online? we asked.

Oh, yeah, sure, they said.

Perhaps there should be an exception to the ETA rule on gameday.

A few days later we learned that they had fixed the break-in damages, but just so we should know, there were also $2K in recommended repairs. We decided to only get the battery replaced and take the car to Sidney’s regular autobody. Before we went to pick it up, we got a call from Stress-Free saying that someone had side-swiped our car while it had been parked on the street, smashing the tail light cover and denting the rear. Sigh.

We took the car down to the other autobody, who confirmed that the car would take around $2K to get back in condition. The car’s market value was less than $2K. A plan was hatched. We picked up the car without getting the repairs and drove 2 hours to a CarMax for an exchange.

Eventually, we got a value for the old car that was more than fair. We are quite happy with our new AWD SUV, which we have named Fish Bowl. And we even got a parking permit. Maybe our car troubles have finally come to an end.