Friday, May 18, 2007

OK, now the story of the rental truck...

I mentioned a few posts ago that we had picked up the bathtub since we had the rental truck. Here is the backstory on life throwing us lemons, and how we made a little lemonade....

I took Thursday off to study and work on practicum assignments (ok, I called in sick...shhhh!) DH was off as well, and decided that he would go get the oil changed in my car. That sounded like a great idea to me, since it would get him out of my hair for a while. About 10:15, he called and asked if I was dressed. The answer, of course, was no, since studying is best done in pajamas. He requested that I get dressed and head to Wal-mart to pick him up, since my car needed to be towed to the dealership for repairs.

WHAT!?!?! Yep, once again, Walmart (during the last oil change) had overtightened the plug to the oil pan. Last time that happened, I just had to take it someplace else to have the plug removed and replced. This time, however, in their effort to remove the overtightened plug, had completely stripped the threads on the oil pan, which meant that the whole pan had to be replaced. Walmart's insurance would completely cover the cost of the tow and repair. That wasn't the problem. The problem was that I had to be at ISU for my final, and DH had to get the boys to their baseball games that night. And now we were down to one vehicle. Well, as luck would have it, Walmart's insurance would pay for a rental car, too. Great!

One problem....it was U of I's graduation weekend. The insurance would only cover $30 per day. There were no cars in Champaign-Urbana left in that price range, due to the large number of people coming to town for graduation. After waiting at Walmart for 1 1/2 hours while the manager tried to find us a car, they finally decided to upgrade us and pay for the difference. We were sent down to the airport to pick up a car, which ended up being a Ford F150, which has the perfect sized bed to haul home a bathtub. Therefore, we would not have to rent a truck to haul one home for our future bathroom remodel.

So, that is my story of making a little lemonade...

**A side note: Walmart went out of their way to be helpful and, while they may have an emplyee who apparently does not know how to tighten oil pan plugs, they took care of everything 100%.

2 comments:

Linda Murphy said...

Way to go! Glad to hear that WalMart was helpful.

Michelle Quinno said...

Glad it worked out!