My Dad and I decided that we would take the battery out and go get a replacement. So he came over around 9:30 or 10am and he unhooked what he thought were the bolts holding it in place… no luck removing it. We looked in the user manual and they conveniently had no diagrams or useful info (they wanted you to go to a dealer of course). So I then went to my trusty standby (Google) and found some instructions for removing the battery. They came with a warning though that sometimes removing the battery caused an issue where things may need to be reset that the layman would be unable to do. Deciding not to do anything to my car that might require getting it towed somewhere, I called Pep Boys.

Having had problems with getting work done on my Jetta at non-VW places before, I first asked if the could replace the battery in my car. The answer was yes. They figured out the cost for my battery and the installation and told me it would be about $132 with tax. I asked if the person I was speaking to had heard about the problems with the resets after installation and he checked with some of the mechanics. He told me that only happened 10% of the time, and if it did, it would be a $59.99 charge.  I joked that he should tell the mechanic to make sure that didn’t happen and asked how busy he was. This was at 11:45am. He said there was only 1 truck ahead of me, it was already being worked on, it should only take 30 minutes and he had a whole bunch of guys scheduled to come in at 12:30. Sounded perfect to me and I said I would see him after we jumped my car to get it running.

So Dad and I tried to use the emergency jumpers from a kit in my car for about 15 minutes without success. He was starting to think about running home for different jumpers when I peeked in the old F-150 we have for gardening and construction projects and found another set of jumpers. Basically, we attached them, made sure they were on properly, I got in my car, turned the key and the ignition immediately started. Lesson learned: 10 gauge jumpers aren’t worth a damn.

So my car is running, Bella is down for her nap and Dad is set up to sit around and watch CNN while I run off to get the battery replaced.

I got to Pep Boys around 12:30 and was immediately told that it was going to be longer than 30 minutes. No big deal, I took longer to get there than I expected (though I did arrive at the same time as the new influx of staff). So, I wandered the store and found some better jumpers and then took a seat in their little waiting area. As a side note, I fully admit I was not properly dressed for the weather outside, but the temperature INSIDE the store, especially in the waiting area was ridiculous. There was no reason for it to be so incredibly cold. But I sat there with my arms folded to keep myself warm, sunglasses firmly in place to fight getting a migraine from the fluorescent lighting and to help ease the vertigo I was dealing with.

And I waited. And I waited. And I waited. I am non-confrontational by habit, so even when it had been 90 minutes since I arrived and I had heard nothing, I just assumed they were working on my car now after fixing other cars first.

At the 2 hour point I needed to use the restroom. On my way back to the waiting area, I looked through the windows they have into the shop area and saw that someone was JUST pulling down the door behind my car… meaning they had only just brought it in to even BEGIN working on it. I was annoyed, but again, non-confrontational.

Around 2.25 hours, I wandered over and saw that my hood was open, but that no one seemed to be actively working on my car. OK, starting to get frustrated. At about 2.75 hours I walked over again and looked in the window and saw that the hood was down on my car. I figured they must be done and hopefully they would check me out soon.

At 3.25 I had just about had enough. I walked over to check on my car and it was still sitting there with the hood down. I walked up to the front and waited around for a few minutes and when there was a break in the frenzied pace, I asked the person whom I knew was the manager if there was a form I could fill out to make a complaint. He continued to ring things up (they were obviously understaffed) and asked what was wrong, I said I was looking for an update on my car. He immediately asked one of the other employees if they could assist me with finding out the status of my car. The employee asked me my name and then went back into the shop. I followed him and then stood near the waiting area.

The employee comes out and says “Oh yeah, um they’re saying you need an oil change”. I said, that’s not possible and walked right back to the check-out area where the manager was. He had a free moment and I unloaded on him….

“I called you guys at 11:45 and I was told it would only take 30 minutes to change my oil” (He responded that he had been the one I had spoken to and remembered the conversation) “When it didn’t take 30 minutes, it didn’t concern me much because I knew some other cars may have shown up. But when I see my car not even getting pulled into the shop until 2 hours after I arrive, that bothers me. When I check on it 15 minutes later and the hood is open but the car is unattended, I figure the work is in progress. When I walk over 30 minutes later and the hood is down, I assume they work has been completed. I realize sometimes it takes a few minutes to get the work orders back inside, but when another 30 minutes has passed and I continue to sit there, I have a problem with that. Then, when I am finally given an update on my car and the excuse for the delay is that they are going to recommend an oil change, I call bullshit. My car was inspected on December 1st, my oil was changed then, my car is rated for 5-6,000 miles between oil changes and in that time I’ve maybe driven 200. This is absolutely unacceptable to me.”

He responded that he completely agreed, he would not charge me for my battery or installation (just a few small purchases I was making) and that he would absolutely speak with the staff in the shop to see why this had happened.

I was livid on the way home. I had wasted so much time, my father had been stuck at my place whether he wanted to be or not and I was missing time with Bella for no good reason.

So, that is why I posted the other day about planning an expletive-laden diatribe about Pep Boys. I decided to tone it back, because I will be copying and pasting much of this content into their online complaint form.

Oh, 2 more things. When I got into my car to leave, I noticed my seat was further back than normal, so I checked Bella’s car seat and it was indeed not seated properly from having my seat forced back into it. If I had not caught this and had been in an accident, there is all likelihood that Bella would have been injured. Also, the battery cover that my Dad and I had removed that was sitting on the passenger seat was never put back on. How effing lazy can you be?

UPDATE: Email received from Pep Boys after filing an online complaint.

This email contains the details concerning your contact with the PepBoys Customer Support Center. We would like to inform you that the issue has been escalated on Jan 26 2012 2:00PM and assigned to the next level of management. We appreciate your patience as we come to an appropriate resolution to this case.

UPDATE AFTER CALL FROM LOCAL REPRESENTATIVE:

He apologized for my time and mentioned that he knew I had been given the battery and labor for free. He asked if there was anything else he could do and when I brought up my other complaints, he just spouted out excuse after excuse.

Me: “Why was my car’s battery cover left on the passenger seat?”

Pep Boys: “Well because unless you specifically ask them to put it back on, they wouldn’t know to do that.”

Me: “Really? Why in the world would anyone want to drive around with their battery cover sitting on their passenger seat? Why would anyone not want to put their battery cover back on if a new battery had been installed?

Pep Boys: No real answer, just excuses.

Me: “The answer is a lack of work ethic and laziness.”

As for my bigger concern regarding my daughter’s child seat being knocked off it’s tracks….

Pep Boys: “Mechanics are all different sizes and sometimes need to move seats in order to move a vehicle.”

Me: “I understand that, and that I realize I am short (5′ 2″), but they did not simply push my chair back and my daughter’s seat was dislodged, they must have slammed it back and pushed very hard for it to be as far back as it was and for it to have knocked the seat off the track. If I had moved a seat back with such force and hit an “immovable” object, I might have checked to see and make sure I had not damaged it.”

In the end he just kept saying, well, if there is anything I can do. And I just kept saying, No, because your customer service is so horrible, I could never imagine using your services again.

I told him that I found this phone call unsatisfactory as an “escalation” of my complaint.

Mommy rage in full effect…….

R and I were so happy to witness this, especially since 5 months ago, we almost had to find Nemo a new home. Every time that Bella would get too close to him, he would snap at her. I was petrified that one day he would make contact and my beautiful baby would be scarred for life.

We tried a few places, but since he isn’t a pure-bred border collie or shetland sheepdog, they wouldn’t take him. So we put him up on pet finder and were extremely vigilant whenever he and Bella were near each other.

Over the months, the snapping attempts lessened and a month or two ago, they disappeared completely. It was such a relief. We hated the thought of having to re-home a dog we had rescued ourselves.

By Christmas, Nemo was rolling over on his back to solicit belly rubs from Bella just like he does to everyone else. I am so glad that Bella will have a close relationship with Nemo, he is a wonderfully loving dog, neurotic in his own ways. I never had any animals in my life as a child and I am so happy that things will be different for Bella.

Now we just need to work on Chloe (who seems to have been through much more mistreatment in the year before we adopted her than Nemo was before we adopted him). But Chloe is a loving, goofy dog as well and we’re at the critical point now where we can transition from making sure Chloe never gets too close to Bella unless we’re holding her, to slowly introducing them to supervised time together. It has been a week or two since Chloe last growled at at Bella, so I am very hopeful we are on our way. In our minds, R and I had figured that by the time Bella was in a toddler bed, the dogs would be sleeping with her in her bed and on her floor instead of ours… her constant companions.

• I am currently the poster child for better living through chemistry. Doc T and I have been working hard to improve my quality of life since my migraines went into over drive last year. We’re done treating my active Lyme (though she wants to re-test to be sure) and I still need to get the dormant Lyme test done. In the meantime, I have found a cocktail which seems to work for me.
  • Lyrica for my neck/shoulder pain and migraine prevention. I’m part of an online pain support group and everyone was surprised that I didn’t have luck with Cymbalta but was finding success with Lyrica. The only problem so far is transitioning off the Cymbalta and starting the Lyrica means I have been dealing with vertigo (which is new for me). It’s definitely not fun. I’ve only driven once since it started, and that was a solo drive to the grocery store. I’m actually a little concerned about driving with Bella in the car.
  • Wellbutrin for anxiety and depression. I’m not sure how much it’s helping with the depression, but it’s definitely helping with the anxiety which was the more pressing issue. Some people cut their legs, some burn their arms, my form of self-mutilation is scab picking. My face turned into a war zone over the past few months. I couldn’t seem to stop myself, I wouldn’t even notice I was picking until it was too late. But even though I haven’t been on it long, I already notice a decline in the picking on the Wellbutrin. Hopefully I’ll be able to let my face heal and stop feeling shame when I look at Bella’s beautiful face.
  • Ambien, oh wonderful, sweet Ambien. I started my 3rd trimester of pregnancy around June of 2010 and I have not slept through the night even once since then. Between my bladder and my daughter and the damn dog, I had not slept more than 6 hours straight in a year and a half. I started taking 10mg of Ambien several weeks ago and have been able to sleep through the night again finally. I am sure this helps my migraines and depression. The funny part of the Ambien is that if I do wake up during the night, especially if R wakes me for some reason… I don’t remember it. It’s like I’m a sloppy drunk without the booze.
• Speaking of sleeping, I’m about at my limit with Chloe. This 35 pound dog has taken over 2/3 of the space I have to sleep on the bed. Contorting around her every night is making me achy and for some strange reason, she’s started having to be let out in the middle of the night (just when I finally started being able to sleep well). The day we adopted her, her first night she just jumped up on our bed like it was the most natural thing ever. I think I really need to encourage her to find the joy in sleeping on a dog bed. I had bought one for Nemo to use under the table I have my computer on and I think I’m going to purchase a 2nd one and try to get Chloe to sleep on it. I don’t expect much success, but I have to try something.
• It’s funny, now that Bella is STTN 99% of the time, she has every reason not to because she is frequently waking up wet with a leaky diaper. It’s time to get some super-duty diapers for overnight and I think we’ll be going to the next size up in diapers anyway.
• Bella had her 15-month check-up last week. She’s in the 35th percentile for height and 90th percentile for weight. She was a complete disaster when the doctor was simply performing her exam and understandably so when she got her 2 vaccines. On the positive side, her vitamins have successfully treated her iron deficiency.
• I am utterly and completely frustrated with Bella’s lack of speech. She jabbers like a fool, takes direction extremely well and can obviously understand a lot of what is said. But neither R nor I feel comfortable claiming she has actually said any words. Has she made noises like “Dadadadada” and “Mamamamama”? Yes, but not at the appropriate times where we would be comfortable saying she associates those words with us. I think part of the problem has been my strength in empathy and reading people…. when she needs things, I can usually figure out what it is without her needing to use verbal cues. So now R, me and my folks (the people she is with most often), have all started refusing to give her what she wants without saying the associated word at least a half dozen times to try to encourage her to speak. So far, no luck. Who knows, maybe part of it is R and my unwillingness to attribute her making random noises with her saying a particular word. She does kinda say “Uh Oh” when she drops things sometimes. Her doctor wasn’t too concerned since she jabbers so much and excels physically (walks like a champ and climbs all over the place), but she has until her 18-month check-up to start talking before we’ll need to get early intervention speech specialists involved. She’s so clever that it’s almost astounding (building things with her blocks, doing wood puzzles, etc.), but she just won’t speak. Grr.
• Bella is absolutely my daughter… she is so goddamn stubborn and persistent. She has this thing where we usually have a toddler chair we bought her sitting up against the couch and she uses it to get up onto the couch, climb over the console and then play in my lap, demand to be read to, or furiously try to mess with my computer, the remote controls or the cordless phone on the table next to me. The other day I was in the kitchen making dinner and I moved her chair into the center of the room near her mega blocks table so she couldn’t get into trouble. So what does she do? She stands up on the chair in the middle of the floor and starts screaming and refuses to stop. Why? Because she wanted to climb up on the couch and she couldn’t. And man, can she ever scream. And the tears? Instantaneous. She has the most impressive crocodile tears I’ve ever seen. She stops crying as soon as she gets what she wants or is distracted. I know the crying is her way of communicating with us when her forms of communication are limited, but holy crap is she ridiculous.
• Oh, Bella has started doing the cutest thing. Whenever I pick her up, she wraps her arms around my neck and hugs me <mommy melt>.
• OMG, I am so fucking sick of the presidential campaigning. The group of republicans vying for support are some of the most despicable people I’ve ever seen in “public service”.
• Speaking of noise, I got a bark deterrent thing from amazon today. We’ll see if it helps at all. We hope to get the dogs to stop barking at imaginary things and get Chloe to leave Lou alone.
• I am so grateful for my chronic pain support group and older first-time moms group on FB, they keep me sane.
• I love zany, self-effacing, witty, snarky, humorous people and if you do too, you must start reading The Bloggess.
• I bought a wireless keyboard and mouse so Bella has a few less cords to pull on.
• It’s the cutest thing… whenever the Professor is over and Bella gets her bottle, she goes over to him and makes him hold her while she drinks it.
• I miss Doc T, she’s been incredibly busy and we haven’t had a chance to see each other in a while (though she’s always there for me whenever medical stuff comes up)
• I also miss snow, we’re apparently skipping that part of winter this year. It was 60 degrees a few weeks ago. It’s just not right.
• R and I actually had a “date night” a few weeks ago (a Christmas present from my folks). They took Bella mid-morning on Wedesday and she came home 24-hours later. We got to run errands, go to a movie (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, I liked it!) and have a yummy dinner out at a nearby Indian restaurant.
• I scanned in and posted a bunch of old photos on FB…. my first marriage seems like a lifetime ago, high school and before seem more like a dream I once had.
• Today is my niece’s 6th birthday. We saw her at Thanksgiving, but I have absolutely no idea when we’ll see her or anyone on that side of the family next. It’s a shame.

Rather than take the car to the same fleet service we usually do, I decided to just go to a mainstream auto place so I could get my inspection and overdue oil change done and over in a reasonable amount of time. Please note: the problems I had would have still happened with the fleet guy.

So around 9am I dropped Bella off with my folks and headed to repair place #1 to see their prices. $87 plus tax for inspection and oil change seemed steep, so I drove around the corner to place #2. They were asking $7X and rather than drive all over the place I just gave them my keys and went off to a nearby strip mall to look around. After 30 minutes or so I get a call that my wipers and tires will not pass inspection. We agree that they will replace the wipers and I will go to a tire place for new tires. I wander around a little more to give them time to get the wipers and then head back over. I get there and apparently the wrong wipers have been sent, so I say just put anything on the car and I’ll go get the tires and worry about it when I come back.

So now I head off for tires. I stop at Taco Bell for some lunch and hit the tire place. An hour and $199 later I’m on my way home to let the dogs out and take a breather. I relax at home for a few minutes and then head back to place #2 for my wiper blades and passing inspection sticker. Along the way I stop and fill up my tank ($35, not too bad these days).

I get back, they take my car right away and 15 minutes later tell me my car is done, but there’s a problem. The wipers they ordered won’t fit my car, my Jetta apparently won’t take after market wiper blades. So, they pass my inspection but recommend going to a dealer for the wipers themselves. (I had also asked them to look at my trunk latch which just stopped working and requires slamming the trunk hard 3-5 times before it closes, they said this would cost $200 to fix).

So I head off to the local Volkswagen dealer and find out my wipers are $45 for the pair and they can put them on for me. I also find out my trunk latch is $60 to purchase and $103 for labor to install. So I buy the latch and decide I’ll install it with my Dad. While I’m there I ask if I have any outstanding recalls on my car and it turns out I do, so then they ask if I have an hour so they can check my air bags for the recall. So, an hour later I finally head back to my folk’s place.

I left to get my car inspected at 9am. I got back to my folks at 3pm. I spent $8X at place #2 for the inspection and oil change, $199 for 2 new front tires, $35 for gas and then $105 for new wipers and the new trunk latch that has yet to be installed.  I am effing exhausted. What a pain in the ass!

I’ve been dealing with them for decades, but for this very reason, I’ve run through most of the standard treatments to prevent them and am nearing the end of my options. Doc T prescribed a muscle relaxer for me to take since a lot of this stems from neck tension, but it knocks me on my ass! I’ve been taking it every evening to get used to it, but if I try taking it during the day, I can barely keep my eyes open and that doesn’t work well with a fleet-footed toddler. I started taking it with milk, so at least the nausea is under control, that was just making it worse. But by the time the morning comes, I can feel the neck tension increasing again and I start to play the “maybe I can handle the pain without medication” game. I try to see if I can hold out, if it’ll subside. But it doesn’t. The main problem with this is that my insurance will only cover 18 migraine pills a month… I get them daily, sometimes more than one dose is needed to get rid of the migraine… that means I have to resort to other methods like taking codeine so I don’t run out.

There is so much I want to do… I want to take Bella to the park, I want to start walking on the treadmill when she naps, I want to work on marketing for my friend’s web store. But every day it’s just a fight to stay in as little pain as I can manage and try to be a good, attentive mother.

I have a last ditch option of getting some blood work to see if the Lyme Disease I had so many years ago may be contributing, but getting out to get the blood drawn is not easy. I don’t want to take Bella with me and I need to go early. Maybe I can have R watch her and try to go tomorrow.

I think everything is complicated by my raging hormones. I made my goal of breastfeeding Bella for her entire first year, but now that I’m not nursing, I know my hormones have gone into a tizzy. This might be why my depression medication doesn’t seem to be working… or it’s just that I’m so tired of being in pain all the time. Something needs to change, but I feel powerless and bordering on hopeless.

But something doesn’t feel right.

I attributed it to New Mommy Exhaustion. Bella still doesn’t sleep through the night and has proven to be a somewhat challenging child.

I attributed it to adjusting to being a Stay-at-home-Mom. I’ve always worked, even in college  and this is a new experience for me.

I attributed it to my post-baby body and not feeling like I had control over my physical appearance.

But I knew. Somehow I knew and it just took me a while to admit it.

My chronic depression has returned.

It really shouldn’t surprise me. I was being treated by T for it before I got pregnant with Bella. But when I lost my job and was pregnant (losing 2 of my major stressors; trying to conceive and an unhappy job), I stopped taking medicine and tried to focus on the positive. And I have been doing that, forcing myself to focus on my blessings. Trying not to dwell on negative things in my life. But something didn’t feel quite right.

Strangely enough, it took noticing the same problem in someone else to make me finally see the light. I fellow fighter of depression, who I could tell was having problems, even though she was fighting it so hard. As I looked closer at her, it made me look at myself and I immediately recognized the signs….

• Pulling back from people, not reaching out, keeping to myself.
• Finding excuses to not do things I both wanted to do and knew that I should do
• Over-analyzing things in my head, spending too much time in my own thoughts
• And finally, anxiety rearing its ugly head

I hate the day of realization with depression. The sadness at realizing that despite my best efforts, I can’t deal with it on my own. The overwhelming wave of sadness that envelops me when I let down the wall that had been holding everything back. The anger that I can’t simply “be happy”. The fear that people will think less of me for my “weakness”. The feeling of exhaustion, like I’ve been running a marathon, when all I’ve been doing is fighting against myself.

Yet every time I dare to share with someone new that I am struggling with this illness, I am surprised by how many times I’m met with “I’ve struggled with it too”. That is why I will not be placing a password on this post. I want other people to know that they do not need to struggle in silence.

I will be seeing T on Saturday and we will decide which medications I should begin taking and when. I am planning to breast feed Bella for 4 more weeks (until she is 1 and can safely drink cow’s milk). So there may be a slight delay, but at least I am on the right path. I wish I didn’t feel so ashamed of my depression, that knowing it isn’t a sign of weakness would help me not feel weak anyway. That is something I still need to work on. At least I am taking the first steps to feeling better. I just wish I didn’t feel so horrible right now.