Well, two days ago my car wouldn’t start. AAA came out very quickly and jump started it. I was on my way to Oakland, so that charged it up okay, and I got back okay. In fact, yesterday I had a similar trip and made it there and back okay as well. I arranged with the local dealership, Menlo Mazda, to drop the car off on my way home, long after hours, and use their key drop. They explained to us where the envelopes are, and so on.

Upon arrival at 10:00 pm, after a long day travelling, we find there is no way to park my car on their site. All their driveways are barricaded with chains. The driveway that would seem to take you right up to their service bays is blocked by two vehicles parked just feet from the sidewalk. I managed to squeeze the little Miata between those cars and their fancy display car up on a stand. Ridiculous. And of course, they were totally out of envelopes, which they were very clear on the phone about “oh, just fill out the envelope.” We grabbed something else out of the car and used that instead.

Turns out that they didn’t notice the car til much later in the day since it wasn’t in their usual parking place (no idea where that was) and the different envelope I used was sized differently and didn’t land where they expect to find it. Nice.