Welcome to Our Readership, Sucky Car Place

Once in a while, I ask myself how I got so involved in this blogging phenomenon, and why I continue with this hobby. The practical reasons are that it has taught me a lot about web design and that it allows me to experiment with Photoshop. The emotional reasons are that it provides an outlet for writing, and makes me pay attention to my surroundings in a more thoughtful way than I did before I had a self-imposed expectation of producing a creative blurb every 1-2 days. Finally, the positive feedback we receive from friends and even strangers serves as support for this project. Thank you, devoted readers!

Every once in a while, something out of the ordinary happens to validate the existence of this blog. Most recently, it appears that our blog played some role in forcing a truly despicable business to refund our money. Here's the story:

Our car was due for an oil change and tire rotation, so Sanjay did some research on locations at which we could accomplish these tasks. He settled on A Business Whose Name I Will Not State Because If I Did They Might Not Actually Send Us Our Check. This Business is recommended by AAA, meaning that we are eligible for a discount.

When Sanjay made the appointment, he made sure they had the specific type of oil required by our car. When he dropped it off, he double-checked that they knew the correct brand and had the oil in stock. When he returned - you guessed it! - they had filled the car with the wrong oil. It took them an hour and a half to fix the mistake, and they refused to refund the cost of the oil change.

Sanjay was livid, and, being an organizer by trade, made a bunch of phone calls as soon as he got home. One of the calls was to the corporate office of The Business Whose Name I Will Not State. They too refused to refund the money, and Sanjay replied that if they did not reconsider, he would report the incident to AAA and post negative reviews of their business on as many web sites as he could find.

It looks like the person Sanjay talked to did a Google search on him, because our blog got a hit from someone at that company. The referring page was Sanjay's Blogger Profile. Shortly thereafter, he received a call "clarifying" what he had requested. He replied that he had originally asked for a refund only for the oil change, but that he now felt a refund for the entire amount was warranted. They immediately agreed to send a check.

To The Business Whose Name I Will Not State: I will state your name on this site, and on Yelp! and CitySearch and AAA and every car website I can find if we don't get that check by July 15. Remember that post about the NASD employee looking for porn and that series on Malfunctioning Items at Kinko's? If you flake out, those will pale in comparison to the profile your company will get.

Devoted readers: stay tuned for a photo of the check (with non-identifying information, of course).