Francine Phillips is a poet, author, and editor living in San Diego, California. Please check out her blog at http://francinephillips.tumblr.com.
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A Second Opinion
“Mom! My car blew up! But the good thing is I was at the mall so we pushed it over to the Sears Automotive shop.” The text message jumped off the screen as I pictured my 16 year-old boy magnet gathering a gang of young men to push her Dodge Dakota truck over to the end of the mall. When I called Sears, they said it was overheated and the radiator hose needed repair.
$250. Ugh.
So we went and got the car, paid the cost and drove back up the hill to home.
A week later, the text blared again. “Mom! I’m at Beef & Bun and the car overheated again!”
Fortunately, it was close by. I stopped and 7/11 for some coolant and drove the two blocks to the burger joint. It took almost the full bottle. We went back down to Sears.
“Oh, well it must be something different. We’ll do some diagnostics, but it’s possible that she has cracked the radiator.”
“What about the $250 I already paid?”
“This must be something different. We’ll call you with an estimate.”
A couple of days later I got a call from Sears.
“Well, there are some preventive measures that should be taken, we are not sure if the radiator is cracked, but it could be because they are plastic these days. And there are some other things that might cause overheating.”
“Like what?” I don’t know why I bothered to ask. I don’t speak car.
Like a blown gasket. She might have one of those – we won’t know until we open it up.
Isn’t that what they say about cancer?
“So what will it cost?”
“Eleven hundred dollars.”
“What! What about the $250 I already paid.”
“Well, this must be something different.”
Pause.
So, what if we don’t do the preventive maintenance, but just fix what we know is broken?”
“Well, I guess we could just hope that the radiator is not cracked and if we don’t have to fix the gasket, that could take it down to about $900.”
“And what would it cost to just get it back up the hill to my street?”
$450.”
“O.K., let’s just do that.”
Jeez.
The next day I got another call from Sears.
“Uh, I’m afraid that we can’t fix the truck.”
“What?”
“Yeah, we don’t have the right kind of equipment.”
“What do you mean you don’t have the right equipment? I’ve never heard of that? It’s not like it’s a fancy car, it’s a Dodge. You can’t fix a Dodge?
“That’s right. Anyhow, you have to get it off our lot today,”
”You had the right equipment when it cost $1100.”
I called my daughter and told her to take a friend with her and to drive it straight to our regular mechanic. Then I made sure she knew how to call AAA for a tow if she needed one. It wasn’t far, but it was up a steep hill.
Anna and her friend made it up the hill to our mechanics, Matt and Carlos. When you have seven kids and six cars, one of which is in the shop at any given time, your mechanics are your BFFs. Now that I’m down to one kid and two cars, they are still good to me.
Carlos had her explain what happened and asked her to pop the hood. He fiddled with the clamp holding the $250 radiator hose, then closed it up.
“Give it a try, Anna.”
It purred. They drove around the block a couple of times to make sure. No overheating. No water spewing out from under the hood. No $1100. No $450. No cost at all.
“They must have left an air bubble in the hose,” said Carlos. “Bye, and say ‘Hi’ to your mom.”
I never ask for a second opinion. Usually I soak up advice and take it straight to heart. I operate on the premise that people won’t intentionally steer me wrong, like the Sears guy. But that doesn’t mean they can’t just BE wrong.
And sometimes listening to just one opinion can cost an arm and a leg.
So, I’m going to explore the idea of getting second opinions. What do you think?
essay by francine phillips, all rights reserved
