So I go scouring Groupon to see what deals I can find. The best one is for the same place I went to two years ago, but that was a major pain in the ass, because you have to just show up and hope they'll take you. Because I work a normal Monday-Friday 9-to-5 job, my hope is to take care of this on a Saturday, and this particular spot is only open til 2 p, on Saturdays, so if the line is too long, fuck you. And the line is always too long. Therefore, I aimed to find a different spot.
Fortuitously, I find a deal at a place very close to me, which I've gone to many a time, and I go ahead and buy it. Then I call the place, and they inform me that they only do smog checks Monday-Friday. This is highly annoying, but I go ahead and make an appointment for Monday.
Monday comes, and knowing from past experience that your chances of passing smog greatly increase if you drive your car around for awhile beforehand, I leave work and do just that, making a big loop up and down the 118, and then pull up to the station for my appointment.
But goddamn mother-fuckin' shit if the dude there doesn't tell me that they can NOT do my smog check, because this one needs to be done at a STAR-certified station, and they are not STAR-certified. He also has the nerve to tell me that this information is on their Groupon ad, but I scoff, because if that information was there, why would I have bought it?
I go back to the office in a huff and double-check the Groupon ad ... no mention of not being STAR-certified. So now, I want to find out if I can get refunded for this unusable Groupon. I end up talking with an AI "rep" and going around in circles about how the period for me to get a refund had elapsed. FINALLY, I get the AI rep to agree to give me a "Groupon bucks" refund to use as I choose. (I didn't mean for that to rhyme, but what are you gonna do?)
At that point, I set about trying to find a STAR-certified location ON GROUPON where I could go to get this taken care of. I did find one, thankfully, called them up, they said they could take me, and I headed over.
I get there, this Eastern European-looking fellow gruffly tells me to pull my car in. I hang around for 10, 15 minutes, he does his shit, then tells me to go over to the office.
I look at the printout. I passed. Holy mother of god. Relief washes over me.
I go back out to my car. I say to the Eastern European-looking fellow, "Thank you, sir."
He grunts at me, "Yeah."
I take off.
That's my story.
Fuck smog checks.
Comments
Post a Comment