I'm Trying NOT to Hold My Breath....

but I'm failing miserably, and I'm so excited I can hardly sit still.

Here's the news:

I'm supposed to get my car back today.

You heard right. As of this past Friday, the deadline for fixing my car was today. I can't wait!!!

The reason that deadline was set last Friday was because my husband decided to be the "squeaky wheel" and moved everybody's asses into gear. (I've thanked him for this many times already.)

Last Wednesday or Thursday, Aaron wrote an email to our insurance agent and the district head for our insurance company complaining that we still didn't have our car back from an accident that happened on October 21. As of this Friday that will have been 12 WEEKS AGO.

12 FREAKING WEEKS!

Well, apparently his email was harsh enough for the insurance company to contact the owner of the shop (which the insurance company recommended we use) about why the heck it was taking so long to get our car repaired. Friday afternoon at about 2 pm, the owner of the body shop called me and apologized for 8 minutes straight that my car had not yet been finished, telling me that he was embarrassed that this had happened, that his shop doesn't normally take this long to do repairs (in fact he said normal repair time should have been between 4 and 6 weeks - we're more than double normal repair time), and that if there are any problems after we got it back that we should contact him on his personal cell phone to get things worked out. And, of course, that the car (bearing any unforeseen events preventing this) would be back in my possession today.

We'll see. No call yet telling me that it's ready. I was hoping to be able to pick it up on my lunch break so that I didn't have to miss my workout after work today.

Anyway, when we got home that evening, there were 2 messages on the machine, and just as Aaron started listening to them (one was from the adjuster handling our case and the other was from the owner of the body shop, again) the phone rang. We typically don't answer our home phone (long story) but I picked it up because my mom usually calls on Friday evenings, and it was the owner of the body shop, once again, apologizing and making sure that what he offered in compensation was okay (he is taking care of more than half of our deductible because of the extreme delay). It was and it took me another five minutes to get him off the phone and to quit apologizing to me. I mean, I'm glad he was doing it, and that he is so sorry about our being inconvenienced, but seriously, I was in the middle of cooking dinner (and in the middle of writing a report when he had called earlier in the day) so this guy was starting to be annoying because he was apologizing so much. I think he's worried that, because it's a small local shop, word of mouth would be really bad for the shop.

The funniest (not haha, but hmmm funny) think he said to me was that there had been interrogations all day (okay, so maybe haha funny - if you picture it right: dim lighting from an overhead fixture over a table, a guy sitting in a chair, the owner going all Vincent D'Onofrio on his ass) to find out what had happened to cause such a delay. Aaron thinks it was the shop trying to nickel and dime its way through the repair, doing only what was absolutely necessary. The owner has since promised me that he will personally check out the work and take it for a test drive before I get it back to make sure that it's "better than new" when it's done. I'm glad that he's taking this so seriously, because if there are problems after we get the car back, I'll be seriously miffed.

Since that time we've also received calls from the district head and our agent about the problems as well, hoping to appease us. Aaron apparently threatened to take our business elsewhere, and this got them up in arms.

So, I'm all set today, new registration and insurance information in hand so that I can have it with me when I pick up the car. If I get it back today, I'll have to post before and after pictures tomorrow (if I get my ass in gear and get the before pictures developed tonight - no need to do that with the after pictures since we have the digital camera now!!!).

I think I'm going to have to switch to keeping my fingers crossed instead of holding my breath, because I'm beginning to turn purple, and that can't be good.

I just want to know so that I can actually concentrate on work today and stop being so damn jittery with excitement.