Before our road trip to LA for the holidays my husband decided to get the oil change the minivan needed. He didn't have time to do it himself, so he took it to the dealer the day before our trip. While he was there, they reminded him about a recall repair that needed to be done and said they could do that too if he was willing to wait an extra hour. He agreed.
Several hours later they were finally done. He maneuvered the van through their lot and came to the driveway of the lot where he needed to stop and wait for a break in traffic before pulling out onto the main road. Simple enough. All drivers stop before pulling into traffic several times each excursion. It should have been simple this time too, except that his brakes didn't work.
After a moment of panic, he managed to pump the breaks enough to stop and then turned right around and went back into the service area of the dealership. And instead of apologizing profusely about how they put his life and the lives of others in danger, they simply said they'd take a look at it as soon as possible.
To make a long story short, he was told that the repairman neglected to "bleed the brakes." I don't really know what that means, but my husband assures me that it is an inexcusable error that resulted in dramatically reduced brake performance.
He never did receive an apology. He just lost additional hours of precious time. Upon hearing the story I was appalled. Their error risked his life and the lives of any vehicle that might have been in his path. We were just lucky that he had to stop to wait for a break in traffic. If he had been able to just pull out, the first time he needed to brake might have been at a busy intersection.
I can't believe they didn't apologize. And then call out a manager and get him or her to apologize. And then ask what they could do to make it up to us. I know we live in a litigious society and to apologize is to insinuate guilt and put yourself and your organization at risk. I'm guessing that is why he didn't receive an apology. However, as a wife who recognizes that her husband's life was endangered, my heart craves an apology. I'm not looking to sue anyone, I just want to see some sincere remorse for such a huge mistake.
Clearly, we'll never return to that dealership. Somehow that doesn't feel like enough though. The incident still lingers in my mind a month later. It pops into my head every time we brake.
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Monday, January 30, 2012
Anticipating a Child-Free Evening
My parents offered to take both children overnight Saturday night. My dad picked the children up early and took them swimming. My parents were going to keep the children all day Saturday, overnight, and most of the day Sunday. It was the first child-free time my husband and I had in over two, very stressful months.
Needless to say, my husband and I were very excited. 36 hours of freedom for parents of young children is no small thing. We went to lunch at a restaurant by ourselves. We did a little shopping by ourselves. Then we headed home for the main event. The plan was to get back in touch with our pre-parenthood selves by playing a game. My husband bought Skyrim (big fantasy adventure game) and we planned to stay up until the wee hours of the night playing. Then sleep in and play again the next day until the children came home. I get that many of you might choose another way to celebrate freedom, but we were pretty excited about our plan.
We were about two hours into playing (which is the tip of a very large iceberg) when the phone rang. My mom wanted to let me know that Ava woke up from her afternoon nap with a croupy cough. (Internal dialog: Oh no!!! Please don't let this ruin our night off!) I told her we would bring by a humidifier and some ibuprofen for the night. She told me to just leave them on the porch so that Ava wouldn't see us and ask to come home.
An hour and a half later we stopped playing and gathered the requested items. I called my mom to let her know we were on our way. In a concerned tone, she told me we'd better come in and listen to her ourselves. I knew this was a bad sign. When we walked in to my parents living room I could hear the stridor in Ava's breathing. It was clearly audible with every inhalation even though all she was doing was calmly watching television. You could see her upper chest suck inwards with effort (retraction) at every breath.
It was clear that we would probably need to go to the ER. Again. I wanted to call our pediatrician's office though and see if there was any possible way to avoid the trip. Perhaps we could try an oral steroid first? We gave Ava an ibuprofen and left her at my parents. The stridor always gets worse when she gets upset and making her leave would have upset her. It took me an hour and a half to finally get someone on the phone and talk them into calling in a prescription.
We picked up Ava from my parents house and drove her to the 24 hour pharmacy with us leaving the windows cracked (cool air helps soothe stridor). I got the medicine in her at 8pm and we drove around for two more hours before going home. She was calm in the car and we wanted to give the medicine a chance to kick in before trying to put her to bed. She was in bed at 10:30 and back up at 11:30 panicking during a coughing fit. I calmed her as quickly as possible to minimize the stridor fallout and didn't manage to leave her room until after midnight. She was back up again at 1am and 2:30am. Then, finally, she stayed down until morning.
The next day she still had audible stridor about 50% of the time, but there was no retraction and her mood and energy level were mostly appropriate so we were mostly out of the woods. We avoided the ER trip by the narrowest margin.
Not anywhere close to the 36 hours of child-free time we had been anticipating, but one health crisis narrowly averted so still a win. Is it terrible that I'm wondering if I can convince my parents to give us a make-up weekend?
Needless to say, my husband and I were very excited. 36 hours of freedom for parents of young children is no small thing. We went to lunch at a restaurant by ourselves. We did a little shopping by ourselves. Then we headed home for the main event. The plan was to get back in touch with our pre-parenthood selves by playing a game. My husband bought Skyrim (big fantasy adventure game) and we planned to stay up until the wee hours of the night playing. Then sleep in and play again the next day until the children came home. I get that many of you might choose another way to celebrate freedom, but we were pretty excited about our plan.
We were about two hours into playing (which is the tip of a very large iceberg) when the phone rang. My mom wanted to let me know that Ava woke up from her afternoon nap with a croupy cough. (Internal dialog: Oh no!!! Please don't let this ruin our night off!) I told her we would bring by a humidifier and some ibuprofen for the night. She told me to just leave them on the porch so that Ava wouldn't see us and ask to come home.
An hour and a half later we stopped playing and gathered the requested items. I called my mom to let her know we were on our way. In a concerned tone, she told me we'd better come in and listen to her ourselves. I knew this was a bad sign. When we walked in to my parents living room I could hear the stridor in Ava's breathing. It was clearly audible with every inhalation even though all she was doing was calmly watching television. You could see her upper chest suck inwards with effort (retraction) at every breath.
It was clear that we would probably need to go to the ER. Again. I wanted to call our pediatrician's office though and see if there was any possible way to avoid the trip. Perhaps we could try an oral steroid first? We gave Ava an ibuprofen and left her at my parents. The stridor always gets worse when she gets upset and making her leave would have upset her. It took me an hour and a half to finally get someone on the phone and talk them into calling in a prescription.
We picked up Ava from my parents house and drove her to the 24 hour pharmacy with us leaving the windows cracked (cool air helps soothe stridor). I got the medicine in her at 8pm and we drove around for two more hours before going home. She was calm in the car and we wanted to give the medicine a chance to kick in before trying to put her to bed. She was in bed at 10:30 and back up at 11:30 panicking during a coughing fit. I calmed her as quickly as possible to minimize the stridor fallout and didn't manage to leave her room until after midnight. She was back up again at 1am and 2:30am. Then, finally, she stayed down until morning.
The next day she still had audible stridor about 50% of the time, but there was no retraction and her mood and energy level were mostly appropriate so we were mostly out of the woods. We avoided the ER trip by the narrowest margin.
Not anywhere close to the 36 hours of child-free time we had been anticipating, but one health crisis narrowly averted so still a win. Is it terrible that I'm wondering if I can convince my parents to give us a make-up weekend?
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Update: The Fantastic Flying Books of Morris Lessmore - Free
A few days ago I wrote about an animated short/iPad app called The Fantastic Flying Books of Morris Lessmore. On January 24, 2012 it was nominated for an Oscar. They deserve the nomination and I hope they win.
In honor of the nomination, the animated short is free on iTunes until February 26th (the night of the Oscars). You can watch it for free here. You can also download it in regular or high definition for free to keep on iTunes. Watching this is definitely worth 15 minutes of your time.
I enjoyed reading this article on Morris Lessmore and the nomination. I also enjoyed watching this short video of the team that produced Lessmore waiting to see if they had received the nomination and their subsequent reaction.
In honor of the nomination, the animated short is free on iTunes until February 26th (the night of the Oscars). You can watch it for free here. You can also download it in regular or high definition for free to keep on iTunes. Watching this is definitely worth 15 minutes of your time.
I enjoyed reading this article on Morris Lessmore and the nomination. I also enjoyed watching this short video of the team that produced Lessmore waiting to see if they had received the nomination and their subsequent reaction.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
