Altimate Mayhem Part: 4 Jetta-pardy Strikes

Well it isn’t over. In the last post about my car saga I had ended on an optimistic note about the fiasco being over and done with. I was just preparing to purchase my next car and move on with my life. HA! The rollercoaster wasn’t through with me yet.
It wasn’t until the fourth that Cale and I could find a way down to Oregon in order to sign the paperwork on the car. A day or so after retrieving my belongings from the inside of my old car I had since Fed Ex’ed the Power of Attorney to my insurance company in the hopes that I would get my refund check and have that whole situation under control by the time I started dealing with the Ford Dealership. The only assurance I had, by the time I left for Oregon, was the fact that my loan on the Altima had been paid off and I had an actual monetary number to tell the finance guy as to what my down payment would be, when the final sale was calculated.
Cale and I ended up buying tickets on the train which was something I’ve always wanted to do and never had a reason to. As far back as I can remember I’ve loved trains because both my grandfather and my father, who currently works on them as an electrician, have been employed by the railroad. I’ve never flown anywhere so I guess I always figured I’d be traveling the world by train. Which is kind of funny since I’ve never gone anywhere by train either, except riding on a steam train around the Mt. Rainer National Park, but that doesn’t really count as going any where since you end up right back at the place you left. So I guess when it comes down to it, I just never plan on traveling the world. Hmm… Anyway, we had to head out of town right after work and our estimated time of arrival was still close to midnight. That also required his parents to come get us and make the two hour drive out to the coast. I felt terrible for the burden on his family I was going to end up being, but they assured me that it was no trouble at all and it was nice to have Cale home again for any reason.
I was so excited and yet nervous about the train ride. The anticipation of doing something new always gets me all antsy. I had no idea what to expect. The train station, from the outside, is a beautiful example of architecture. Having never been inside I expected the interior to follow the graceful image the outside set. I was almost disappointed. It all seemed so horribly run down. Past glories were evident but every where I turned it all just reminded me of any other dirty train station from an old movie. Cale was a veteran of this particular train ride, having taken this route home on holidays when he was attending college in the city.
Once we were assigned our seats I was like a five year old skipping along as we moved toward the correct car. The first people in the car, we snagged our seats and settled our stuff around us for the most amount of comfort. Immediately I thought of how people always complain about leg room on airplanes. The train wasn’t much better from my viewpoint. I went for the window seat because I knew that was where most of my attention would be focused. The ride would be almost the same length in time as if we had driven, yet we had two more hours to look forward to after arriving at the station.
Five to six hours in a train seemed like a long amount of time to keep one’s self amused so I wanted to make sure I was prepared. I wore my cargo pants in order to keep all my stuff close at hand. I didn’t want to be digging around in my bag for something. We bought snacks for the trip as well as some awesome travel games. There’s nothing like a little competitive game of “Connect Four” to keep the time passing by. Or so we had thought.
The game of “Connect Four” didn’t last much longer than the train pulling away from the station. The clinking noises from the game would only end up annoying the rest of the passengers and there was a definite sleepy atmosphere within our car. People were heading home from the Motorcycle Convention or just heading out for the holidays, either way you could feel that the rest of the passengers were done for the day and wanted a quiet ride to wherever they were going. That was fine with me and Cale too seemed intent on going to sleep. I, on the other hand, was far to jazzed up about discovering what track we were on and seeing what parts of what towns our adventure would take us through.
It was a clear night and with Christmas coming, many people had their lights up on display. What a great time of year to travel at night by train. I also got the chance to solve a debate I’ve had with an ex-boyfriend for several years now. The tracks that travel along the waterfront in Tacoma disappear into a small tunnel and then what seems to be another longer tunnel that goes right under Ruston and the Pont Defiance Zoo. Mike has always said that there could never been a tunnel under that much of the town; the tracks had to turn back to the water and curve around the land that way. As I physically entered the tunnel and watched the train’s T.V. display in my car that explained about the tunnel and where it went, I couldn’t help wanting to jump for joy. I had been right all along! There was a tunnel under the city! Making a mental note to send a triumphant email Mike’s direction the next chance I got, I lay back to watch the world go by my window.
The movie that night was Polar Express which I had never seen. Even without the sound, I found myself watching it more than what was flowing past my window. The scenery was becoming more industrial with less interesting things to watch and for some reason the movie seemed more interesting since I couldn’t hear any of the dialogue. If anything it was putting me in the Christmas spirit. Here I was on a train, watching a movie about the train that takes kids to the North Pole to meet Santa Clause, how cool is that? As night truly fell and the ride took us through sections of towns that had no street lights or commercial areas to be lighted, I really couldn’t make out the details anyway. I just kept an eye out for the sparkle of Christmas lights.
By the time we were in Oregon people seemed to be coming back to life. A large rowdy group behind us was talking about the motorcycle convention that I had hoped to catch but had missed due to lack of transportation. Someone in that group started talking to a girl no older than four years old, that was sitting a couple rows up. A darling little thing she smiled and hid behind the safety of her father, quietly answering the questions being volleyed at her. Like most young kids she was a shy at first but as the night got later the little princess was less than pleased. With every stop she would jolt awake and demand, “Gamma’s house?” (There's something so cute about dropping letters at that age.) After being told no several more stops later she started to get pretty cranky. “Gamma’s house?”
“No Honey,” the father would explain.
“I wanna go now!”
“We’re getting there as fast as we can. Sleep for now.”
“NO!” The argument went back and forth until she decided to tell her Dad she’d rather walk. For some reason Cale and I found this utterly adorable and hilarious. Even though the little girl was being basically bratty and quite loud, she never lost that element of innocence. This joke as stayed with us so far. Whenever one if us is getting cranky, the automatic response is, “I’ll walk!”
We made great time through Portland and on toward our destination. Apparently it was the norm to get delayed at least an hour or more due to freight traffic. We lucked out. The whole ride had been on-time or ahead of schedule the whole way. Our car was becoming very empty by the time the T.V. monitor flashed the name of the next stop, which was where we would get off. Discovering that we were the only ones getting off at that particular stop, it was a little odd having the conductor get us from our seats so that we could stand next to him at the exit. Hanging out by the sliding exit doors, Cale and the conductor got to talking about rowdy passengers and what the consequences of touching a conductor were. Apparently there is quite the hefty fine for getting involved in a scuffle of any nature with a conductor. That was interesting information to have while standing next to the exit door of a train, with bags in hand as if getting ready to jump. I was almost wondering if we would have to jump since I really didn’t feel the train slowing at all, the closer we got to the station. Thankfully the train did stop and we stepped off the train in quite the civilized fashion.
Once off the train I was glad that Cale had been in contact with his dad about our advanced arrival time. The station was more like a bus stop with barely a covered area to huddle up under; there would have been no protection against the bitter cold. From warm train to warm Land Cruiser, I was pretty much done for the night, nodding off the whole drive back to the coast. I felt like a wound up little kid coming down from a trip to the circus or something; emotionally tired as well as physically. All because I had spent that entire trip straining my eyes out the window trying to take in as much of the experience as I could.
Arriving at the family home somewhere in the neighborhood of one in the morning I pretty much went to the futon bed and passed out, there was even a moment when I considered not changing my clothes. I wanted to be asleep in that bed as quickly as possible and anything that could slow down that process was getting vetoed. In five hours I would have to get up and shower to be ready to leave again with Cale’s father by seven in the morning. These were the moments I hated being a girl. I knew Cale would just roll out of bed and be ready to go the next morning. I on the other hand had to plan a head for time to get ready. It’s hard work to look this good (or so Mary Kay would tell me).
Waking up to the alarm on my phone was like being drug up from the dead. This was one of those experiences that makes me feel like I went to sleep two seconds ago and now it was time to get up. The upside was that I didn’t feel exhausted like I normally do in those situations, but I still REALLY didn’t want to get up just yet. On the other hand I was excited to get the paper work rolling and really have a car again. I’ve gone through so much in the past two months. Something good had to come out of it all. I did manage to get ready on time, not forget all my paperwork and, most importantly, I had my check book in hand as I walked out the door.
The frosty weather had apparently followed Cale and me from Washington. This morning was the first icy conditions the coast area had had to deal with this winter. That didn’t really seem to slow down Cale’s dad at all. Driving into town in a large work van with the Dealership’s logo on the side, we made the journey in the same amount of time as it normally took. Cale, the whole time, was balancing on a small plastic step stool in the back of the van, lying low when we passed the local police. I had to laugh. While I was all cozy in the front seat, there was Cale trying not to roll around the back of the empty van.
The rest of the process is a blur. I remember sitting in the finance guy’s office for quite some time yet I really don’t remember much of the process in distinct details. Two months to the date; I found that sort of creepy as I scribbled my name on a bunch of offical looking lines. The fifth of October had been the accident and there I sat on the fifth of December signing the paperwork for my next car. I really hoped that meant good things.
After everything was signed and calculated, I still spent more money than I wanted and I knew that, once I got back to the house, the insurance quote would be more than I was paying before. But that was the joy of this whole process; now was the time for the little financial "dings" to start adding up. I wrote the check for the down payment and dated it as the same day that the trip permit (temporary license) would expire. I figured I would receive the check from the insurance company in the same amount of time that it would take for me to get the new Washington State plates on the car. No problem. No problem I had thought.
Those seemingly non-existent problems started small and popped up when I made the long drive back home. The section of the dash where the heater and fan direction knobs were located, didn’t light up at all. There was something a little disturbing about reaching into the darkness of my center consol in order to feel around for the knob that adjusts the heat temperature. I felt stupid for not noticing that detail, yet I never would have seen it during the day time anyway. How does a person check for stuff like that? When I helped my boyfriend, at the time, buy his truck I was under the hood and checking the tread on the tires, looking at all sorts of stuff that he forgot about. I’m not a stupid girl. At least I wasn’t in the past.
The cracked passenger side mirror had been negotiated out of my own hands, at my own fault. I agreed to take a hundred dollars off the final sale price of the vehicle and later fix the damn thing myself, with the help of wholesale parts from Cale’s Dad. Fine and dandy but half way home both Cale and I noticed that the whole outer cover of the mirror was rattling around in the wind. Further investigation showed that the clips that hold the shell to the mirror assembly had all been broken. I didn’t just have a cracked mirror to replace. Now I had to replace the entire unit which, as I had learned on my Altima, was NOT cheap.
The final kicker was when I pulled off of I-5 to fill my tank for the first time. Something made both Cale and I started looking around for information on the octane that the car required. What I figured out did not make me happy. “No less that 91 octane”. Premium gasoline was 92, Plus was 89. I suddenly didn’t know what to do. This was never something that my parents, any of my boyfriends, or any of my guy friends had ever mentioned about their vehicles. The idea that a car might require a higher standard of gas other than Regular hadn’t even occurred to me and now I was facing the fact that in the midst of one of the worst raises in gas prices, I had just bought a V6 that required Plus to Premium gasoline to be put in. Did it ever end?
No it didn’t. A week later when I drove to the DMV expecting to get new plates put on the car I was sent away because the office hadn’t received a copy of the title yet. When I signed the papers back in Oregon, the Finance guy specifically told me that he was going to send out the paperwork to the DMV in my hometown, the very next day. There was no confusion on where to send it, I had already worked that out. Why it wasn’t there yet confused me.
Calling the dealership only got me a story about “checking in to it” and no call back. Do people in customer services take classes on that shit? I myself work in customer service and no one taught me that one. Then again I don’t have a cushy office in which to pass the buck in. Maybe that’s the problem? If half these people actually had to deal with the public “face to face” every single day, eight hours a day, stuff like this would never happen again. The general public feel too entitled to stuff to let something like that slide as normal practice.
I’m not the type to get in someone’s face about simple stuff. Nor am I one to call a place constantly but I was dealing with several issues here and admittedly some baggage from the insanity that my accident had been. Buying a car was not tough. This I did know well enough from past experience. The problem with the dealership obviously putting me off was the fact that my temporary license only lasted until the 15th. When the paperwork still wasn’t at the DMV on the 14th, I refused to pay for another permit because it was not my fault that the original permit had expired. It was the dealership’s fuck-up for not sending out the paperwork when they had said they would. Righteousness or not, this still left me right back where I was not a week ago. Owning a car but unable to drive it. I mean this with no exaggeration: I was insanely angry.
The following Monday I had received no call back from the dealership in relation to a solution to my problem and again was told that the proof of ownership had not been sent to the DMV. What the hell was the deal? Cale got pissed off and called his father, who proceeded to handle the situation on that end for me. The next phone call was from the salesman that I had been working with, not the finance guy I had been trying to get a hold of. The excuse this time was that the lady in charge of my paperwork had been on vacation. Brilliant! I hope that they had an actual departmental meeting over the creation of that lie. That’s a great one that deserves credit to be put where it’s due. Whoever that lady is, I hope she’s getting paid well for the amount of importance she seems to hold. Everything at the dealership screeches to a halt, all paperwork ceases to be filed, when she’s not in the office. Or maybe this dealership was so lame that they never sold cars, so mailing paperwork on time and similar practices were so far and few between that everyone in the back office forgot how the whole process worked. All angry sarcasm aside, what I cared about was the fact that the paperwork I needed was going to be over-nighted to the DMV.
Right on time, the DMV called me Tuesday at twelve o’clock sharp to let me know the paperwork had been received. Thankful, I still couldn’t get to the DMV that day; the phone call had come just a little too late. Even with the knowledge that the paperwork had indeed been sent over-night, it just brought the original question back to mind in angry focus. WHY THE HELL COULDN’T THEY HAVE DONE THAT TWO FREAKING WEEKS AGO? I decided to give my brain a rest and not think about that factor too deeply. I just wanted this whole thing behind me. I figured I’d just take my car early Wednesday morning (at the risk of being pulled over) hit the DMV, deal with the paperwork, and have plates on my car before I was no more than a half hour late heading out to work. Silly me, what was I thinking?
Wednesday morning I roll into the DMV bright and early. The same ladies had seen me come in at least three times now, this being number four. Getting past the process of them searching for paperwork and coming up empty handed, was such a nice step forward. This time the whole process got the chance to move forward even if more things went wrong. I ended up paying the difference for the ‘tax and license’ fee that the dealership had apparently miscalculated. It wasn’t anything major and the ladies behind the desk assured me that no auto dealership in Oregon could calculate that fee correctly. It wasn’t a part of the personal conspiracy against me.
Everything was moving along great. The lady pulled out a new set of plates, put tabs on them, and then headed into the Notary’s office for the final sign off of everything. I was left at the desk reminiscing about the fact that my old plates had been easy to remember: the letters had been the short version of my boyfriend’s name at the time and the numbers had been the inverted area code for the islands he had been from originally. Now I had to learn all new letters and numbers that weren’t personally meaningful to me. Ending that thought I saw the lady return with my paperwork in her hands, looking less than pleased. What the DMV proceeded to tell me put me on the brink of tears in public, which is a damn difficult thing to inspire in me.
The paperwork that states that the odometer hasn’t been tampered with each time it has been sold to a different buyer, along with the back of the original title of ownership, all had randomly scrawled signatures. According to Washington State Law, I had to have the printed legal name of every person that had signed on those two pieces of paperwork. This car had already changed hands at least three times that I knew of, and a dealership had just stamped the line instead of writing in the name of who ever had been doing the paperwork. In Oregon, these laws were not in place and therefore the paperwork went back to the beginning with no legally printed name.
The Notary wanted me to go personally find every single person that had signed on that paperwork and get them to print their names. Impossible! Completely and totally impossible! I started to freak out. I think the ladies behind the counter sensed that and jumped into help. I was doing my best to keep myself under control, but it was tough. One of the ladies said they would accept the paperwork if I could get the names and return myself to print them. How in the world I was going to do that I had no idea either, but it was a touch more plausible. They also photocopied the paperwork for me, highlighting the names I needed to find, so I could have a copy to take that with me when I left.
The second dilemma I was facing was the fact that I needed to get to work and had to pay twenty-four dollars in order to get a temporary license that would last me three days. The dealership had given me a ten day permit for free. How did the math work on that? I know that the ladies in the front office did everything they could have in that situation to make it easier for me but I still went to my car and cried.
That was the final straw. I couldn’t take one thing more regarding a car. The Gods were telling me that I wasn’t allowed to have a new vehicle; so fine I could take a hint. I could take a hint, but I just couldn’t take the problems anymore. I didn’t have the money to be throwing away on trip permits, a car I couldn’t drive, and missing work for fruitless reasons. I drove to work desperately trying to get a hold of myself and not look like some lost female when I walked into work late with no good news to share when someone asked after my car.
Cale immediately jumped on the phone to his Dad again and that’s how I spent my day. I was trying to work and keep in communication with him as he did all the detective work for me. How he found all those names is a mystery to me, but I am unbelievably thankful that he did. I don’t remember much from work, what I do remember is running upstairs to the fax machine either picking one up or sending one out. That coupled with several personal phone calls, I was definitely feeling like a total loser on the work force. I hate how this whole situation has compromised my dedication to my job. I care more about getting this stuff handled than what my poor crew was dealing with that day.
Thursday I headed into the DMV armed with a stack of papers and the determination, coupled with the fear, to not leave that place until I had Washington State license plates in my hand. The same lady as the time before helped me with the printing of the names and took thepaperwork into the Notary for final inspection. Talk about being on pins and needles while I waited! When she returned grinning from ear to ear I felt lighter than air. FINALLY! Finally something had gone right for me. I was even smart enough to bring tools with which to put on my new license plate before I jetted off to work. At last I was done with the whole affair.
Sadly this has taken a toll on my own enjoyment of the poor car. I find myself taking my bitterness and frustrations and channeling them into dislike for the car itself. Honestly there is nothing wrong with the car. I haven’t even had it for two weeks so I know I’m just missing my Nissan Altima. Yet I don’t care to make this car mine. I don’t like it. That’s the bottom line. I regret not waiting longer to look for a used Nissan. Shoulda, coulda, woulda. That’s what it comes down to and it is far too late to be bitching about something that can’t be helped. I am the owner of a little red Jetta whether I want to be or not. Now is the time to make the best of it.