So when we last left our heroine (me) she had left her car in the hands of the very nice insurance agent (almost as good as the service we get from Gina at Am Fam back home! :)
Said insurance agent promised to call me back when the car was finished ... but he didn't. At least not the next day. On day three, and after Brian ended up renting a car for a work trip he had scheduled in Dubai, I got a call from someone at the garage asking if the Lexus was ours. SIDE NOTE: In case you're wondering how Brian is holding up through all this chaos, he was actually a pretty good sport after the first few hours of fuming and swearing. It probably helped that he didn't have to do the running around to get it fixed. :)
Anyhooo, on day three, I finally reached someone at the garage with passable English skills and found out the car was ready and they were open from 3-7pm, so Brian and I made plans to pick it up together from Mussafah (you remember Mussafah from Part II, right?) The fun part was getting directions from the garage owner. The conversation went something like this:
"Can you give me directions?"
"Yes, Mussafah, Industrial Area 14."
"... And where is that?"
"Mussafah, Mussafah, Industrial area 14. First roundabout - straight; Second roundabout - straight; Third Roundabout - U-Turn; then first right; first left and first right. There you find us."
ummmm (I actually started laughing at this point and the garage owner joined me)
"It's 100 Meters from the Honda Service station. Madam, you come Mussafah and call me when close."
Sounded like a good idea to me.
So, we hopped in a taxi and gave the driver the directions I had from the phone. He seemed to know where the Honda Service station was so off we went.
About 4 wrong turns and 3 phone calls later, the owner told us to ditch the taxi and he would come and pick us up. How's that for service? And he did. A really nice man from the shop picked us up (we were only about a long block away, but would never had found it the way we were going) and took us to the shop.
And then we met the owner who was one of the nicest and friendliest people we've met in Abu Dhabi thus far. He and the co-worker who picked us up explained that they had to bend the muffler pipe back into shape and then replace the bumper where the exhaust had bubbled the paint and plastic. They were quite proud of their ability to match the pale pale blue paint exactly.
I think we stood around (in the 95 degree heat mind you) for almost 10 minutes just chatting and making jokes. They were really nice guys and as I told him as we got ready to leave ...
"It was really nice to meet you, but I hope I never have to see you again."
And now you know the rest of the story and from here on out, I'm going to look twice before backing out of any parking spot at the grocery store.
Said insurance agent promised to call me back when the car was finished ... but he didn't. At least not the next day. On day three, and after Brian ended up renting a car for a work trip he had scheduled in Dubai, I got a call from someone at the garage asking if the Lexus was ours. SIDE NOTE: In case you're wondering how Brian is holding up through all this chaos, he was actually a pretty good sport after the first few hours of fuming and swearing. It probably helped that he didn't have to do the running around to get it fixed. :)
Anyhooo, on day three, I finally reached someone at the garage with passable English skills and found out the car was ready and they were open from 3-7pm, so Brian and I made plans to pick it up together from Mussafah (you remember Mussafah from Part II, right?) The fun part was getting directions from the garage owner. The conversation went something like this:
"Can you give me directions?"
"Yes, Mussafah, Industrial Area 14."
"... And where is that?"
"Mussafah, Mussafah, Industrial area 14. First roundabout - straight; Second roundabout - straight; Third Roundabout - U-Turn; then first right; first left and first right. There you find us."
ummmm (I actually started laughing at this point and the garage owner joined me)
"It's 100 Meters from the Honda Service station. Madam, you come Mussafah and call me when close."
Sounded like a good idea to me.
So, we hopped in a taxi and gave the driver the directions I had from the phone. He seemed to know where the Honda Service station was so off we went.
About 4 wrong turns and 3 phone calls later, the owner told us to ditch the taxi and he would come and pick us up. How's that for service? And he did. A really nice man from the shop picked us up (we were only about a long block away, but would never had found it the way we were going) and took us to the shop.
And then we met the owner who was one of the nicest and friendliest people we've met in Abu Dhabi thus far. He and the co-worker who picked us up explained that they had to bend the muffler pipe back into shape and then replace the bumper where the exhaust had bubbled the paint and plastic. They were quite proud of their ability to match the pale pale blue paint exactly.
I think we stood around (in the 95 degree heat mind you) for almost 10 minutes just chatting and making jokes. They were really nice guys and as I told him as we got ready to leave ...
"It was really nice to meet you, but I hope I never have to see you again."
And now you know the rest of the story and from here on out, I'm going to look twice before backing out of any parking spot at the grocery store.
No comments:
Post a Comment