After a week and a half of silence from USAA I got on the phone this morning and navigated their stupid menu system after three tries to get to a human being—the first two tries landed me in the voicemail of my Customer-Non-Service Representative. Once I’d wrangled a live person and explained what I was calling about, they transferred me to a specialist who listened to my situation, put me on hold, and then conferenced me in with a woman at the title/salvage yard in New York. She helpfully told me they were waiting on the lien release, which I hadn’t included in the paperwork. After ascertaining what it was I was supposed to send along, I asked them repeatedly why I hadn’t been contacted about the delay or with further instructions, and they basically deflected. Irritated, I found the document in my files and sent it off FedEx this afternoon; hopefully I’ll hear something back before Christmas and we can go get a new fucking car. Meanwhile I’ve slagged the woman who hasn’t been assisting me to everyone at USAA.

I dropped the second rental off at Budget this afternoon, and we’ll see if we can make it through the holidays with one vehicle. This rental was a full-size Chevy Malibu, and for a Chevy it really was quite a nice car. The controls were almost exactly the same as the Trailblazer we rented in New York, so there was no learning curve to go from one car to the other. Heated seats and remote start are definitely on the list of must-have items for the new vehicle.

Seen on the way into D.C. today, motoring on 295 at a comfortable 75mph: a Citroen DS 2.1, or déesse (goddess). They are famed for their hydropneumatic suspensions, which erase any bump in the road, advanced engineering, and futuristic design. I suspect this one was being ferried somewhere, as there was a large inventory sticker on the passenger window.

My grandfather drove one of these in the early 70’s (I had an English-made Matchbox of this car and was aware enough of its shape to recognize his) along with an enormous black Cadillac, a Saab 900, and a host of other exotic foreign cars.

This morning I called USAA after looking over my auto claim on their website and seeing no movement whatsoever; I bypassed the extension of the adjuster who had haphazardly contacted me and tried to get someone else on the phone, but they were too smart for me and I wound up in her voicemail box again. After leaving a clearly dissatisfied message, I put it aside until this afternoon. Checking back in on the site, I found no movement. I looked away from my laptop and when I looked back I saw a prompt for a review of their service. Fed up by this point, I left them a not-so-friendly but detailed summary of my frustration and hit send.

Two minutes later the house phone rang and a rep from USAA—not the one who I’d previously been playing phone tag with—introduced himself politely, stepped me through the details, and gave me a valuation on the car quite a bit beyond what I’d been thinking it would be. He advised me on next steps, answered my questions, and said goodbye. It was like a weight had been lifted from my shoulders; this was what I’d been asking for the whole time.

There’s a phenomena that I’ve noticed at times like these, when I’ve reached my boiling point, I’ve been frustrated by poor customer service, or just ignored: the Sky Pilot will provide me with some means of griping through an official channel, and seconds after I’m done spewing bile I’ll be contacted by someone else at the offending organization who is absolutely the nicest person in the world, who answers all my questions and provides the best experience possible, and I wind up feeling like an entitled asshole.

There’s clearly some kind of message I’m being sent. Should I start mass-producing scathing Yelp reviews?

Honda just released an electric update to the Motocompo, a tiny foldable motorcycle they designed and built for city traveling back in the 1980’s. The original gas-powered bike was produced for two years and now sell for ridiculous amounts of money; the new Motocompacto is listed for $995. Cleaner, lighter, and just as funky, it folds down into a 30″ x 21″ x 4″ box, is good for about 15 miles of range, and takes 3.5 hours to charge. If I was commuting into DC every day and had a longer walk to deal with, I would have already placed my order for one.

Saturday morning, Jen was walking across the street to church when she spied an antique pickup truck parked on the side of the road with the hood up. Even though she was late, she walked over and asked the owner if he needed a hand, pointing at the Scout in our driveway. After hanging up the phone with her, I hustled out to the street to see if I could lend a hand. The owner was puzzled; he’d just rebuilt the carb and had driven it all week but now it was randomly dying on him. I pointed out the gas seeping around the gaskets on the carb and told him I figured it was something clogging the jet inside. After a couple more tries he got it running again, and I offered to follow him back to his house to make sure he made it. He led me to a beautiful little farm in Oella where he had a mid ’60’s Corvette in one garage bay next to the original Deere tractor used to work the farm before he bought it. We talked cars and houses and threw his shepherd Barney half of a frisbee in the sunshine; he prank-called his son to tell him he’d bought my Scout. I had work to do so I said goodbye and extended an invite to stop the next time he spied the garage door open. All in all, not a bad way to spend an hour on a Sunday morning.