Have your people call my people....

Now that I have "followers," I'll have to try really hard to not let it get to my head! I mean, I'm still all "Washington Girl", "Momma Chae from the Block", etc, but now I have a POSSE. And you know what that means. That means if I need to go kick some major butt, or have an all out dance off, all I have to do is snap my fingers and you guys will come swaggering after me, ala "Westside Story," or "Thriller." At least, that's what I think it means to have followers.....
Right?
Speaking of butt kicking, I’m going to have to channel my best Erin Brockovich moves to work some magic at the local car dealership. Since my car started making some interesting noises a couple of weeks ago, I’ve found out that my transmission is going to “blow up” according to the guy at the auto shop. I think this may be a slight exaggeration of what actually might transpire, but if not, I think I’d feel awfully silly having my car disintegrate into millions of pieces on my commute home after I’d been warned and all.

The dealership doesn’t want to honor the 10 year, 100,000 mile warranty. Why? Because I don’t have every receipt of every faithful oil change I’ve ever gotten, regardless of the fact that most of them were done by my dad and then my husband and the fact that the current problem has nothing to do with oil changes…. But now that I’ve done some online sleuthing, I can see that warranty dodging seems to be the norm for this company. I’ve read that other folks were told their “warranty” didn’t apply because they lived in Georgia where the weather is “humid,” in other states because there is a “cold climate” exemption, etc, etc, etc. The list goes on. How absurd (and almost funny) is that??
So, my car is currently sitting at the dealership in limbo as my husband and I trade some nice and friendly rhetoric about honor, integrity, and customer service with the kind folks at the service bay. And then these poor dudes get on the phone to some anonymous supervisor / warranty denier who tells them to ignore the poor shlubs in front of them and stick to company policy come hell or high water:

“Stick it to the Working Joe and Rip Him Off whenever possible!”

Meanwhile, we are sharing a vehicle. Two adults, 2 jobs with different hours, 2 kids in car seats – one a “step” son that needs to be picked up in a neighboring city every Thursday….. you get the idea. I need my wheels and I need them now. Of course, if I was super rich, I would just go get some cool new hybrid. Does anyone in my new posse know how to get super rich in a day or two?