I got one flight in this morning before the wind picked up. Since our second flight was canceled, a few of us decided to head over to Famous Dave’s for lunch. Shortly after ordering, my flight suit started vibrating.

(The following sentence for Sydney. To the rest of you, I apologize.) I retrieved my personal communications device from the zippered orifice in my flight suit, performed a bifurcation maneuver upon it, placed it to my auditory organ and coerced my vocal cords to say, “Hello?”

Joanna sounded upset. Yesterday, I’d given her the task of phoning through the book to find the cheapest auto glass replacement people and arranging to have them replace the badly cracked and sandblasted 16 year-old windshield in the red car. It seems that they had come over and replaced the windshield but wanted payment in cash or check only. She didn’t have a check with her, and certainly didn’t have $140 in cash. She asked if she could go get the cash from an ATM, I told her that would be fine… then I asked if they did an acceptable job. “Well, um, there’s this green band of tinting on the top of the windshield…” “Yeah, that’s totally unacceptable.” “Well, that’s what I told them, but then the manager started yelling at me, and said if I didn’t pay, he’d call the police, and…” on and on and on. The short of it was the guy was going to be there in ten minutes, so I got my lunch to go, hopped in my car and sped up to Monument. Of course the window people were not there when I got there.

I ate some of my lunch, and decided to call them. The conversation was long and drawn out. First, he tried to tell me that he told Joanna personally that the window would be tinted (he did not), and that cash or check was the only accepted form of payment (he did not). I fail to see how telling a customer that his wife is a liar is a good tactic. After he droned on and on about what happened (not at all the version of events Joanna relayed, but at this point, moot anyway) without letting me interupt him, I got to the point. “The point is, you’ve installed the incorrect windshield. The windshield you removed is clear, the one you replaced it with is not.” He then tried to argue that everyone in Colorado Springs replaces windows with tinted windows, no one wants clear ones. Whatever, not the point. Eventually, he demanded that I pay him $147.50 today, and tomorrow he’d send out an installer to install a new clear windshield for an additional charge of $60 because they were more expensive. The only places that mentioned a difference in price between clear and shaded when Joanna called said the clear ones were cheaper. I pointed this out, and he muttered. I told him that was unacceptable and that I wouldn’t be giving him any money until he installed the correct windshield. He responded by saying he would have the installer return with police escort and replace the tinted windshield in my car with my original windshield. I called his bluff, “That’ll actually be perfect, I assume they can do it today?” “Well, you realize we’ll still have to charge you for the labor.” “You can charge me all you want, but I’m only going to pay for the work I originally asked you to do, which is to install the correct windshield in my car, which you haven’t done. I’ll gladly see you in small claims court.” He then launched into a diatribe about he gets ripped off for thousands of dollars a year, blah, blah, blah. I pointed out that everytime I have anyone work on my car, I get ripped off, so I do it all myself, but there was no way for me to replace my own windshield. He then agreed, and launched into a sob story about how he’s getting ripped off by a transmission company. This sort of thing went on for a very long time. He eventually said that he’d send an installer by tomorrow with a clear windshield, and I’d have $147.50 in cash for him when it was finished.

We’ll see what happens tomorrow.