Making It Up As I Go Along #398

Don’t Hit My Car
Thanks for grounding me this weekend Rhodes and Williams Insurance company. Friday mail is pulled from the superbox after work Friday night but not opened until Saturday. Within the mail is a letter from Mazda. I noticed it Friday and expected some talk of a special on tune ups or an update on my lease.

This is not to be. On Saturday I find a letter telling me that my insurance expired in the middle of November and calls by Mazda to Rhodes and Williams have gone unanswered. I check the proof of insurance in the car and, sure enough, that one is expired.

It’s one of those things you don’t think of. You hop in the car, turn the key, and all is the same as the last time you hopped in the car and turned the key. Engine starts, you go to where you’re going. You don’t even think of the proof of insurance until the new one comes in the mail. It didn’t dawn on me that none has come in the mail for a little more than a year.

I’m left wondering if I did something wrong. Threw out a piece of mail that I should have responded to. Maybe things did run out due to my negligence. Checking my old mail, I actually find a letter from April when Rhodes and Williams thanks me for my service and, for continued coverage, do nothing.

Well I can do nothing. I’m rather good at nothing doing. So no answer there.

I check my previous month’s bank statements. Oh looky there, my money was removed from my bank account. Rhodes and Williams got paid. Notice how the mistakes are never in getting their money. Mistakes never make things better for the client.

Calling an insurance company about their lack of service, on a weekend, meets absolutely no resolution. The only people able to talk to you is there in case you ran into a poll or your kid fell down the stairs. There’s nobody there to explain why they’re taking your money for no reason.

And so I find myself grounded. Until Monday at least. An old lady could rear end me at the grocery store parking lot and I’ve suddenly got hundreds of dollars of bills possibly falling into my lap. Hundreds of dollars if I’m lucky.

Perhaps I’m still covered. For Rhodes and Williams sake, I better be. We aren’t chummy enough for me to feel good about giving them a few hundred dollars for nothing. But I can’t afford to take that chance.

So if I’m going to play ball this evening, it’ll be by putting out some of the guys who’ll have to drive fifteen minutes in the wrong direction before heading to the game. Thank goodness for the convenience of insurance companies.


MONDAY...
— Relaxing in the fleece sheets until 11:00 AM is a fine thing.
— Work is work... blah. Nice palling around with Kiyomi though... helps make certification go by.

TUESDAY...
— Well a long week it’ll be... I’m in certification all week. Ugh.
— Junior Gold medal game on PVR after work. Based on the bits people would do and say around me at work, I knew the game went to overtime before I ever started watching. A good game all the same, despite America beating Canada. Others winning is the only hope for this tournament not becoming a total joke anyway. I often wonder how excited we should be about Canada victories when Canada is really the only country in the world that really cares about this tournament in the first place.

WEDNESDAY...
— Pizza night at work. Larry, Devin, Kiyomi, Sarah, Leslie and I all place orders at Louis’ Pizza... glorious glorious Louis’.
— Work is painfully slow going... but chatting with Sarah and Kiyomi as we go helped.
— Republic of Doyle on PVR for my return home. The first episode of the new CBC show filmed as a detective show based in St. John’s. I liked it. Fun, good shots of the city... and a scene filmed in the Duke of Duckworth... you just can’t go wrong.

THURSDAY...
— Sleeping in the fleece sheets is amazing these days. Getting out of bed is the problem.

FRIDAY...
— Meeting before I start work. Checking out options with other possible RCMP jobs. You never know... can’t hurt to see what’s out there and available.

SATURDAY...
— Clean day. Laundry and house... well, still a bathroom to do and lots of junk to toss, but it’s a start.
— Nice to see my auto insurance company is on the ball. I get mail from Mazda saying my insurance expired and their calls to the company have been unanswered... and yet the next month’s installment came out of my bank account. So now I may be uninsured on the car and am stuck without wheels until the mess gets cleared up.