Limping In, Comedy Of Errors

  Sheesh, what a week.  As you know, my car dropped a tire on Saturday.  Garage calls Monday with estimate, and I ok, the work and it is to be done on Tuesday.  Tuesday morning, I get a call, and they say that they cannot find the keys, did I give them to the driver of the tow truck. I replied, YES, I DID give to the tow truck driver.   Calls were now placed to AAA and then also to the towing company.  Towing company has no idea who drove on weekend.

  So, I waited for call backs.  Late Tuesday evening,  I get a call from garage.  They know where the keys are. Someone had viewed the video security tapes going all the way back to Saturday.  They saw tow truck driver, open the overnight delivery slot, and a shaft of sunlight came in. he left and after a short while, came back and opened the slot again.  To make this shorter, I will say that although we still have not heard back from the tow truck company, we can say for sure that the keys for my car were at garage.

 Forwarding along in the security video tapes, they can see my keys on the front desk thru most of the day on Monday.  There, they are gone!  Looking closely at the tapes, they see a man pay for his car, reach down, and pick up mine off the desk, and depart the building.  Hello Houston! We have the man on tape. Not only that, they know who it is.  They call him all day on Tuesday, but he never calls back.

 After I made arrangements to get a ride there on Wednesday morning, we now have a set of keys for my car once again on the premises.  I decide, I am going to spend the day there until car is finished and so that my remaining set of keys will not go on a walk about .  Just after 11:30 AM, the key snatcher finally calls back and says that he was wondering where these keys came from.  Just after they had fixed his car, they pulled it out of the bay in the garage and parked it in front of the office, and they left HIS keys in the ignition. He must have seen his keys in ignition and just pocketed mine.  He said he would come in later to drop off mine.  Well, by 12:45, I ended up having both side lower ball joints replaced, not just the one, and also the drive shaft from original left side. I paid and was free to go.

 This does not exactly end the story.  I rec'd a call just after 2 PM saying that the keys were finally dropped off, and I let them know I would come back later to pick them up.  Finally, I am reunited with both sets of my keys.

  On a side note, we have all seen those cars on the side of the road which have lost a wheel.  Have you ever wondered how they move your damaged car around the lots when it is not raised up on a tow truck?  Well, you are in luck.  I have a short and, sorry, small in viewing size a video of them moving my car out of the parking lot.  They used a floor jack, and raised the wounded side up, took off my tire, and set it back down on a wheel dolly.  Next, you get a bunch of the mechanics to go out and push the car in. Photo below may not be the clearest, but if you squint and look at drivers side front tire, you will see the front end sitting on a dolly. Video is of them pushing my car over to repair bay.