last week, i brought the yellowmobile to the shop, owing to a squeaking noise and a looseness i felt in the front left tire whenever the automobile went over rough terrain. it went in friday morning at 10 a.m., and i received no update on the service until i called them at 4 p.m. at 4 p.m., joyce went to check on the status of the car, and promptly forgot what she was supposed to be doing. so i was on hold (not hold...the phone was left on the counter) for 10 minutes. after 10 minutes, she picked up the phone and said "are you holding for something?" i said i was. for my car. she said "i completely forgot!"

then joyce checked. then joyce told me that some of the mechanics had gone home sick this morning, and that nobody had been able to look at the car. they had confirmed that it would only be warranty work, so i would not be charged. this had happened at 1030 a.m., but she hadn't felt it was important to call then. 'i won't be at full staff until the middle of next week. do you want to pick it up today, and then bring it in sometime next week?' today was my first available day, so that's when i made the appointment to bring it in.

so i brought it in today. and she called me at about 3:30 to tell me that it was fixed. so i picked it up.

she then showed me the warranty survey i might be getting, and explained that, to gm, the most important question was number 16. she then explained that, if i was 'completely satisfied,' i should check that box. and if i was 'very satisfied,' i should still check the 'completely satisfied' box. she put the letter 'a,' over 'completely satisfied,' and the letter 'd' over 'very satisfied,' explaining that only an 'a' was acceptable to the corporate folks.

if i get the survey, i don't think i'll answer either 'complete satisfied' or 'very satisfied.' perhaps 'somewhat satisfied,' mostly because i really dislike working with joyce. in 1,000 miles, or one week (whichever comes first), my warranty expires. i'm happy i don't have to go to this shop anymore, although i'm upset that i'll have to pay for service. sigh.

i had a wonderful date tonight. dinner was fine. conversation was sharp, and lasted hours. in that streets song, he rambles, 'i told her i thought it was important / that you could get lost in conversation. / chattin' shit, sittin' in oblivion / with that person who's your special one.' (it's rhythmic when he speak-sings it.) and it was like that tonight.

problem is, of course, that it was with a fifty-something male coworker, and that dinner has left my jacket reeking of smoke. i did, however, help him install a wireless card in his desktop pc and a wireless router to his roommate's pc two floors up and, within 90 minutes, we had hooked him up online. which is far more than i expected.

and i got a fine free dinner out of it, so that's got to count for something.

happy hour for a co-worker's birthday tomorrow. some sort of odd trivia night saturday. nothing else planned.