The Newtown Pentacle

Monday

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Is there no one on this planet who can even challenge me?

General Zod said that in the second of the Christopher Reeves Superman movies, and I find myself repeating it periodically.

Every now and again, one of these native born Appalachian people decides they’re trying to get one over on me, thinking that I’m dumb or facile enough to allow it. It’s usually a clerk of some kind.

I have one sentence to offer in response – I’m from Brooklyn, yo, don’t piss on my feet and tell me it’s raining.

A minor business dispute at the customer services desk of my local car mechanic spun wildly out of proportion recently, for instance. Somebody in their employ randomly tried to inflict their will upon me, which caused me to have to ‘react.’

You never, ever, want to see me to start ‘reacting’ to something. There’s a small army of environmental regulators and politicians back in NYC and especially so at Newtown Creek who can tell you that.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Long story short, a minor ‘recall/repair’ was applied to the car a couple of years back. Known issue, manufacturing defect, easy peasy fix if you’ve got the replacement part. Said replacement part began to degrade over time during the last 24 months, and I mentioned my problem with it to the mechanics desk when I came in for an oil change. The person I was talking to got hostile about it, and quick.

This kicked off almost a month of back and forth’s, and a great deal of wasted time for me. These shots were gathered during my most recent encounter in this skirmish, when the car was at the mechanic for appointment number three.

After gathering these shots, since I hadn’t heard from the mechanic since dropping the car off, I decided to call them and ask for a status.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

First, I was accused of trying to defraud Toyota since the clerk didn’t bother looking up my car’s warrantee in her system. Started purposely mangling my name during the conversation – called me ‘Which Maxwell,’ ‘Max Wishman,’ and a few others.

Then she decided to randomly try to charge me $300 just to have a mechanic examine the issue that I had described. Under my breath, I murmured ‘eff off, and she hung up on me.

What this person’s mistake ultimately came down to was in not understanding what it was she was dealing with. I got back to the dealership, collected my keys, and then proceeded over to the side of the facility where they do the office work. I do not back off when I’m in the right. Period. Don’t start a fight, but finish it, that’s me.

Two hours later, and I’m waiting to see the GM of the dealership. Couldn’t see me in person, but we spoke on the phone later on in the day and worked things out.

He chided me for using ‘blue language’ with a woman, to which I responded that ‘I don’t modulate my behavior towards Toyota employees based on their gender or sexual identity,’ and that as a guy from NYC – cussing is a cultural thing for me. He said that ‘here in Pittsburgh, gentlemen speak properly to women.’ I apologized for my cuss, and didn’t go after his sexism, all of which seemed appropriate to do. Sometimes you need to give them a little ground in an argument, before pressing your point.

Pfah.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

This whole encounter just pissed me off, mainly because of all my time that was wasted with no mechanical result on the problem I was having with the car.

Suffice to say that I allowed exactly 48 hours from the phone conversation with the dealership’s GM to pass, then left him a message asking if he’d been able to find a resolution to my problem.

Son of a gun if the person who had randomly caused all this derision, and wasted the time of both customer and dealership with three separate maintenance appointments, didn’t cheerfully call me up to schedule an appointment for the dealership to ‘make good’ on the issue. I was also told, happily, that she had found my warrantee in the system, and called me ‘Mister Waxman.’

All General Zod ever wanted was respect, and what was best for his people.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

This person at the dealership’s receiving desk was acting towards me like a bully. When I was a little kid, I had to ‘take it’ from this type of person. As an adult, however, this sort of behavior is unsafe at any speed to perpetrate, around me at least. Can’t abide it.

One of my beliefs is that if you are ‘strong,’ psychologically speaking, and you encounter a bully you must knock them back. If they’re trying to do this stuff to you, it’s a guarantee that they’re doing to others who aren’t as capable of standing up to it as you are. You owe it to society.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

They really don’t see it coming, with me deep in the conflagrations of middle age. The gray hair disguises it, I guess. I must look like a pushover.

Heh.

Back tomorrow.

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