Busy Saturday

Well, I was right . . . we rolled back into Chico right about noon today. Geesh. Nothing I like better than waking up at 6:30am on a Saturday, and spending half a day at the dealership.

NOT!!!

The good news, is that it was an absolutely bang-up, gorgeous, perfect fall day. About 75 degrees, beautiful sunshine -- not a cloud in the sky. Gee, makes me feel like breaking into song . . . . LOL

Well, like I said, we rolled out of bed about 6:30 this morning, bleary-eyed, but determined to "git'er done"! We were out the door and on the road by 7:20 am. We rolled into YC Toyota dealership about 8:05am -- all slapping ourselves on the figurative back for being so "brilliant" as to get there first thing . . . well, lemme tell ya. We weren't the only "brilliant" ones. Seems like other folks have caught on to the whole "if you get there when they open, maybe you'll be first" idea. Next time I can just see us driving to YC at midnight the night before, and camping out in our car just outside the bay doors for the Service Dept., with our blankets, bottled water, and praying that the Carl's Jr. next door has a 24 hr. lobby in order to answer nature's call. (Hey, when ya gotta pee, ya gotta pee; ya know?!?). The girl at the counter said people start showing up on Saturdays about 7:20am. Ack!

Okay, like I said, we rolled in about 8:05 a.m. Big. mistake. Big. Huge! There were (and I DO NOT exaggerate) a million cars in line already. Millions. Billions! Okay, maybe not. But there were 8 or 9 cars already in line at the service department. We also asked them to check the driver's side visor, and to put new windshield wiper blades on the car. (And those wiper blades is yet again another story . . .) So of course that added on more time. When it was finally our turn in line at the service counter (just exactly how many people has Chuck Patterson Toyota pissed off, anyway?!?!?) and got all the paperwork done blah blah blah . . . we asked how long it would be. "Oh, about two hours" was the reply. Two hours. Two hours, in frickin' Yuba City, with no car. Do you know where the Toyota dealership in Yuba City? Within walking distance of exactly nothing. There's a Carl's Jr. right next door, and a little strip mall shopping center across the street, with a Raley's, Goodwill Thrift Store, a barbership, cheap-o beauty parlor, beauty supply store, Hollywood Video/Game Stop store, and some other non-interesting stuff. Yippee skippy!!

On the good news side, there was a Perko's restaurant. Yum -- breakfast! We walked across the street and across the parking lot to Perko's, and killed off 45 minutes eating a so-so breakfast. OMG they used powered eggs for their scrambled eggs!! How disgusting is that?!? I know they must have real eggs back there, because if you ask for over easy, it would be a little difficult to hide that they were powdered. Oh well, it was warm in there and it was a way to kill some time. Bill says I complain too much -- I just call it my commentary on the world. Otherwise known as . . . well, complaining I guess. Trying to be funny?? Oh well.

After we finished our mediocre breakfast with its mediocre service (our waitress wouldn't have cracked a smile if you held a gun to her head!), we wandered the strip mall. That's how I know exactly what stores were in there. We decided to wander into Raley's for some yucks and grins. Looked at all the Halloween stuff in there, used the bathroom, bought some plastic baggies I needed for a project at work (no, it is not what you're thinking -- this project does not involve medicinal MJ or scales or anything even remotely illegal -- geesh!).

By then we'd managed to kill off another half hour or so, and short of wandering around the Thrifty Bargain and Dollar Store across the street (gee, and I SO love to hang out with the trailer trash!) but I hadn't worn my thong panties to show over the back waistband of my jeans,so we just decided to head back to the dealer and look at new cars. NO WE DID NOT BUY ANYTHING!! We are so upside down in the car we're in, that there is no way we could even if we wanted to. It's just fun to look at new cars, especially at a Toyota dealer, where there are FJ Cruisers, and 2008 Avalons, and Toyota Tundra CrewMax longbed trucks (exactly how do you represent Tim "The Tool Man" Taylor's infamous manly grunting?!?). And how fun is it to mess with salesmen's heads, letting them show you all the new cards and trucks, leading them on so they think they're about to close a big sale, then just wander off with a casual, "Thanks but we're just waiting for our car to be serviced . . . ."

Okay, nah we didn't do that either. Well, we looked at cars, but we didn't do that to the salesman. That's just cruel. Besides, they had our car in the shop -- God only knows what they'd do to it in there if we did that. Puncture a slow leak in the master cylinder? Who knows what lurks in the heart of . . . oh wait, salespeople don't have hearts . . . LOL

Anyway, we didn't get out of there until after 11am. We'd been there 3 hours by then. THREE HOURS!!! Geesh. But they did wash our car for us -- that was nice. We walked out of there $112 poorer (the 10K service was only $39.99 as expected -- it was the $50 windshield wipers (YES I SAID FIFTY DOLLARS) and the $26 license plate frame that says "Avalon" on it in some cool swoopy writing on it that pushed it up to over the $100 mark. I figured why should I drive around advertising Yuba City Toyota on my license plate frame, when they don't pay me to do that?!? So instead I paid them $25 for the license plate frame. This is better. Yeah. It is. Right? Right. Okay.

Anyway the wiper blades. Well, apparently these lovely wiper blades do not have replaceable blades. You have to purchase the whole frickin' wiper arm. One is longer and the other is shorter, so they cost like $35 for one and $15 for the other. What is up with that?!? Oh, and that kind of wiper blade unit is unique to Toyota, so guess what? You can't just run out to Wal-Mart and get a replacement. OEM is pretty much all there is. And after being out on the downpour yesterday, I REALLY REALLY need new wipers. The old ones were torn. And why they'd only last a year and cost $50 is beyond me. That's what we get for purchasing such an expensive car. Geesh!!

So, then we called Mark, my oldest son, and asked him to meet us at 2:00 to get the rest of their stuff off our porch into their storage, and to get the big stuff out of our storage into theirs. Since we had some time to kill, we decided to go into the new Costco that just opened up in Chico. They just finished the new building and had their grand opening on Friday, and we were curious to see it. The built the thing on the back of the lot of the current one, then they're planning on tearing down the old one and putting in a Costco gas station. Very cool! Anything to save a buck or two on gas is fine with me! So anyway, naturally it was VERY VERY CROWDED. It was a Saturday, which makes it always crowded. It was brand-new, so of course it was crowded with all the lookie-loos (like ourselves) who just were curious. It was the last weekend of the month (but since the 1st is on Monday, lots of people got paid on Friday, so it was like the first weekend of the month, even thought it wasn't really the first weekend, it was the last weekend, but people were shopping like it was the first weekend -- well, you get what I mean. Don't you? Okay would you explain it to me, now?? J/K. LOL Anyway, it is a very cool, VERY LARGE store with a huge selection of everything you could ever want. We bought a few things that we needed (and one thing we didn't -- a book for me. The latest James Patterson book just JUMPED into my cart honey -- I swear!! LOL Anyway, we had fun.

Then we spent the rest of the afternoon getting things into storage, etc. etc. I cooked dinner, we watched a little TV, and now I am blogging. And I am very tired. And this is very long. If you've made it this far -- congratulations! You win a prize! Okay not really. But I sure have fun writing these things. But I must toddle off to bed now. I am TIRED.

Nite-nite. Have a great Sunday!!