Now, that's service!

Over the past few weeks, i've been seeing a lot of Kevin and Lenny, the guys who work at the car repair shop just up the highway.

#1 Son's car needed some serious repair, and so did the Jalopy.  The Honda needed brakes, too.  In fact, between all the repairs and that crazy ABS light being on, and then going off, and then coming on again, i've been over there at least twice a week for the past 3 weeks!

On one visit, Kevin asked if my ABS light was still coming up, and i said sometimes.  As i drove home, it popped on again, so i turned right around, left the engine running as i pulled straight into the bay, and told him he could get his reader, it was on right now.

Based on the codes, Lenny thought he knew what it was, and it was something that a lot of GM cars had trouble with a few years ago.  While picking up #2 Son's car, he said he had ordered a part.  When i asked how much that was going to run, he said, "We'll talk about that later."

Yesterday i ran up there to see about that part, and get the headlight replaced that had burned out four days prior.  Kevin ran me home, and i awaited the call telling me it was ready.  When it was, Bigger Girl took me back up there to get it.

"I'm only charging you for the headlight replacement," Lenny said, right off.

Are you sure? i asked.  That doesn't seem right to me.

"We've been working on your ABS system for almost 2 1/2 years, and when we work on a car, we fix it, we don't just keep working and working on it.  So until I know whether or not this is even going to fix it, I'm not charging you.  In fact, I'm only going to charge you if it ever bothers my conscience that I didn't make you pay for a problem we should have caught at the beginning!"

And that, my friends, is service, and why i keep going back to Kevin and Lenny.


Today is:

Black Cow Root Beer Float Day -- the ice cream and root beer combination was supposedly first served on this date in 1893 by Frank J. Wisner, owner of Cripple Creek Brewing, and he named it after the local Cow Mountain

Jeshen -- Afghanistan (Independence Day)

Hanawa Bayashi -- Kazuno City, Japan (parades and music in the merchant's quarter, through tomorrow)

Hot & Spicy Food Day

Manuel Luis Quezon Day -- Quezon City, Philippines

National Aviation Day -- US

Potato Day

St. John Eudes' Day (Patron of Baie-Comeau, Quebec, Canada)

St. Sebald's Day (a/k/a Sebaldus) (Patron of Bavaria, Germany; Nuremburg, Germany; against cold weather and freezing)

Vinalia Rustica -- Ancient Roman Calendar (Festival of Ripening Grapes)

Watch the Pot Wednesday -- Fairy Calendar (sometimes actually occurs on a Wednesday, more often not)

World Humanitarian Day -- UN


Birthdays Today:

Snuffleupagus (year unconfirmed)
Jennifer Morrison, 1979
Matthew Perry, 1969
LeAnn Womack, 1966
Kyra Sedgwick, 1965
Kevin Dillon, 1965
John Stamos, 1963
Adam Arkin, 1956
Cindy Nelson
Peter Gallagher, 1955
Mary Matlin, 1953
Jonathan Frakes, 1952
John Deacon, 1951
Gerald McRaney, 1948
Tipper Gore, 1948
Bill Clinton, 1946
Jack Canfield, 1944
Jill St. John, 1940
Diana Muldaur, 1938
Franklin Story Musgrave, 1935
Willie Shoemaker, 1931
Don Ho, 1930
Gene Roddenberry, 1921
Malcolm Forbes, 1919
Jimmy Rowles, 1918
Ring Lardner, Jr., 1915
Philo T. Farnsworth, 1906 (forgotten inventor of television)
Ogden Nash, 1902
Coco Chanel, 1883
George Bellows, 1882
Orville Wright, 1881
John Dryden, 1631


Debuting/Premiering Today:

"Animal Clinic" and "Acrobat Ranch"(first Saturday morning children's programs, on ABC), 1950


Today in History:

The Roman Senate is compelled to elect Octavian, later Augustus Caesar, Consul, BC43
Augustus Caesar dies, 14
Crusaders defeat the Saracens in the Battle of Ascalon, 1099
Mary Queen of Scots arrives in Leith to assume the throne, 1561
Five people are executed for witchcraft in Salem, Mass., 1692
Presentation of Jacque Daguerre's new photographic process to the French Academy of Sciences, 1839
The New York Herald reports the discovery of gold in California, 1849
The first All-American Soap Box Derby is held in Dayton, Ohio, 1934
Hurricane Dianne kills 200 and does about $1 Billion in damage, 1955
Leonard Bernstein conducts his final concert, ending with Ludwig van Beethoven's Symphony No. 7, 1990
Several hundred East Germans cross the frontier between Hungary and Austria during the Pan-European Picnic, part of the events which began the process of the Fall of the Berlin Wall, 1989
A series of strong storms lashes Southern Ontario spawning several tornadoes as well as creating extreme flash flooding within the city of Toronto and its surrounding communities, 2005
A team of divers discover the wreck of a Swedish warship, part of King Erik XIV's fleet, that sank in 1564 in the Baltic Sea, 2011