2006-05-05 - 4:15 a.m.

So now we can add AAA to the list of American companies that are now going down the drain. Customer service is now so polarized, there seems to be no middle ground, either a company provides amazingly outstanding service, or service so horrible that you want to go postal on the company, and it�s usually the latter.

I was on my way home up highway 110 last Sunday, after having spent the afternoon down in San Pedro. I�ve taken to going down there once every weekend, to walk along the waterfront or watch a cruise ship depart or have a meal by the water. The Port of L.A. area is doing a major uplift, �Bridge to Breakwater,� putting in parks and walkways and such and people are very friendly down there, even surly skateboarding teenagers, such as the �gang� I happened upon who were going to do some death-defying leaps and grinds along the walls, planters, stairways, and handicap-ramps of the main Port of L.A. administrative complex (closed on weekends). �How�s your day going, sir?� asked one of them as he dropped his board to the concrete and leapt onto its heavily-scratched surface. Maybe he was afraid I was an on-site security guard, there to kick them off or call the police on them, so he wanted to test the waters. But I think my understanding smile put him and his compatriots at ease, I have absolutely nothing against them and their sport, but instead maintain a sense of amazement at their spirit and ability. Watching them for a few moments before I walked away, I came up with the idea that wouldn�t it be cool if schools routinely put in skateboard parks on campus, actually supported this kind of athleticism instead of fighting against it. It�s certainly good exercise and good mental skill, too, I�m pretty sure, and what a good message of acceptance to send. Of course, I�m too realistic to think that any school board would ever go that route, �Think of the insurance, think of the legal liabilities!� Besides, schools don�t want to support anything �alternative� and skateboarding is not a team sport; in the mindset of a school, anything �individual� is suspicious. Anyway, maybe kids like this enjoy the �rebellious� aspect of it all and even if their school had a Disneyland of skateboard parks, they�d probably still be out discovering government buildings to �terrorize�. (Did my writing that word get a government snooping algorithm to red flag this entry?)

Anyway, it was now time to get back home and along the way, I began to smell something that smelled like cement, you know, like if you are going to mix some concrete and as you pour the bag of cement into the mixer (or wheelbarrow if you are hand-mixing with a hoe), your nose gets a big whiff of the powder, it smelled like that. My first thought was that maybe a cement truck had been just ahead of me but there was no sign of anything like that. Then when ever-increasing wisps of smoke began to rise up from out of my steering column, I realized that the smell was my own car and that I had an electric fire below the steering wheel.

This made me decide that the smartest choice was to exit the freeway and pull over and park on the side of a surface street and call AAA. I really had no idea how serious this was, or not, but what worried me the most was the airbag. I don�t really know what all makes an airbag explode, some kind of sensor I guess that feels a sudden powerful de-acceleration upon impact, but if the wires are shorting out or melting, might that, too, cause something to happen? Automobile electrical problems are always a difficult mystery, even to mechanics, so it certainly wasn�t something I was going to be able to fix myself. Naturally, this was happening on a Sunday�it seems that I always have car trouble on a Sunday when there are no mechanics around. However, I wasn�t going to leave my car down here. AAA could at least tow it to my mechanic�s block and then on Monday I could manage to drive it into my mechanic�s garage once he was open.

Last year about this time, I had had to pull over and call AAA, because (what it ended up being) some plug in the bottom of the cooling system had blown, making the coolant pour out the bottom of the radiator and steam was billowing out from underneath the hood. I had tried to refill the radiator, but it all just kept pouring out again from somewhere underneath. The gutter where I had parked steadily filled up with lime-green liquid. So, a call to AAA was in order. However, they did not, or would not, answer their phone! I attempted off and on again for over an hour, and that whole time, the phone just rang and rang and rang. I tried several alternative numbers listed on my membership card, calls from out of state and so on, and still, no answer. Finally, I gave up and called a friend to come get me; I would leave the car there and deal with it later.

My friend Kate picked me up and took me home, and later my friend Bob called me so I complained to him about AAA�s incompetence. Well, he said, �That is simply unacceptable,� so HE took to calling them and they finally answered, so he made them call me, which they did. They apologized for having trouble with their phone system and made an appointment to meet back at my car at 6:00 A.M. the next morning. The next morning, I took a bus (two different ones, actually) back to where my car was, the tow truck arrived at the appointed hour, and I was towed to my mechanic.

Well, this time, AAA answered right away, I described my problem and said that I needed a tow. They asked me to tell them my location. I said that the street I was on was Broadway, and up ahead of me was a cross-street that had a sign that said �King�.

�Let�s start with what city you are in,� the woman said.

�Los Angeles,� I said, with, perhaps, a slight wisp of �duh!� (but not quite).

�But you�re in Southern California!� she said.

Now I really was more on the side of �duh!�

�Well, I�m going to have to transfer you to Southern California.� (Isn�t that the number I called?) Then proceeded the distorted and very broken sound of the worst music-on-hold I have ever heard, which did nothing but increase my anxiety level. As I waited while this horrible music screeched in my ear, I observed what an ugly neighborhood I found myself in. My neighborhood last year was an ugly neighborhood, too, one that had made me very nervous about leaving my car overnight. Then I realized that all neighborhoods in L.A. are ugly. If I were stuck in my own neighborhood and sat in my car looking at my very apartment building, I would think this was an ugly neighborhood and I would be afraid to leave my car there.

Finally somebody in L.A. came on the line and asked me where I was. I went through my �Broadway and King� routine.

�Martin Luther King?� the woman asked me.

�Well, maybe,� I said. �The sign says �King,� you know, �K-I-N-G�, only those letters, but it�s probably �Martin Luther King� because after �King� it says �Bl,� which must mean �Boulevard�, therefore I think you are right, it must be �Martin Luther King Boulevard,� but I must be specific that the sign does not say that.� This was, I�m afraid, all too cerebral for this clerk, because she insisted that I be absolutely specific as to just exactly where I was. How the hell am I supposed to know? I am reading her the names of the signs that I see, �Broadway� and �King�, what else can I do? Surely she�s got the Internet or Mapquest or some kind of Thomas Guide to help her figure it out. Instead, she transferred me to somebody else, subjecting me, once again, to that music on hold.

This time it was a man, who made me go through the whole �Martin Luther King� routine again, in which I had to make surmisals (is that a word) about what the name of the street really was based on this abbreviated sign. I felt like I had to be a little too intuitive about the name of a street that I would never voluntarily travel down, myself. Don�t urban planners know that the real effect of naming a street �Martin Luther King Boulevard� is to flag to sophisticated drivers that this will be the worst neighborhood in town and one to carefully avoid driving into? Uhm, they won�t be naming any street in Beverly Hills �Martin Luther King Boulevard�.

�I see where you are,� the man said, and then asked me for a call-back number. I admitted that while I was calling on my cell phone, I did not in fact, have the number memorized.

�No, problem�, he said, and then told me to expect the driver no later than 4:08 P.M., which happened to be 30 minutes past the time it was now.

So then I just settled back and �relaxed� and listened to the cars going back and forth while angry hip hop boomed out of their automobile stereos.

4:08 P.M. came and went. I gave it another ten minutes, then called AAA again to check on the progress of my service call.

�Let me look that up for you,� said the woman. �What is your location?�

�Broadway and King.�

�What city are you in?�

�Los Angeles.�

�Why, that�s in Southern California,� she protested.

�Yes, Los Angeles is in Southern California.� (Who am I calling, anyway--Bombay?)

Transfer�bad hold music�woman comes on the line.

�We don�t understand where you are,� the woman said.

�Broadway and King.�

�Well, the driver couldn�t find you,� she said.

I got out of the car and stood there looking at the street sign. �The sign says �Broadway�; in fact, it specifically says �4000S Broadway�. Does that help?�

�And the cross street?�

�King. Well, Martin Luther King, but the sign actually says only �King�.�

�There is no such intersection,� she said.

�Well, I�m standing right on it.�

�Four hundred South Broadway?�

�No, four thousand South Broadway.�

�Well, why did you say �four hundred�?�

�I didn�t say �four hundred�, I said �four thousand�four thousand South Broadway.�

�Yes you did, you said �four hundred.��

�I�m not going to argue with you about it, the address is four thousand south Broadway, so that�s where the driver needs to come.�

�Well, now that you are telling us the correct address, he will be able to find you.�

�Okay. But just in case he has trouble, let me give you my call-back number. I didn�t know what it was before, but I looked it up on my cell phone�s phone directory.�

�Okay, let me have your call-back number.�

I gave her the number, and she reported back to me the standard �thirty minutes.�

So I sat back again, this time not really relaxed. But no worries, they now have even more detail than they had before, plus my cell phone number. I should have given it to them before.

Half an hour. Forty-five minutes. My eyes got exhausted in my head, staring at every vehicle that approached, hoping it was a AAA truck. Nothing.

So I called for a third time.

�But you are in Southern California!� again, transfer, hold music, blah blah blah.

�You are not where you said you are. The driver went there and nobody is there.�

�Four thousand South Broadway, nearest cross-street is King Bl., I have not moved, this is where I am and no tow truck drove by. It�s very, very easy, Broadway is a MAJOR street, the whole time I have been here tons of busses have gone down BOTH streets, the entrance to the 110 freeway is just ahead, I am only one street parallel to the freeway, it would be impossible to miss me. In all this time, the tow truck driver could have completely gone up and down the whole length of Broadway twice. And besides, if the driver was having trouble finding me, why didn�t he call me, I gave you my call-back number.�

�No, you didn�t give us a call-back number.�

�Yes, I did.�

�No, you did not. It says right here, �no call back number�.�

�I don�t care what it says there, I gave you my number and I want you to get a tow truck here.�

�I�m going to transfer you to a supervisor.�

The supervisor came on, and she said, �Let me look up something�okay, I know where you are,� she said.

�Good, maybe you can come get me,� I joked.

�I don�t know why they couldn�t find you,� she said. �Okay, no problem, your location is clear, he will be out there in thirty�no, he will be out there in twenty minutes!�

�Let me give you a call-back number, just in case,� I said, �because I really can�t wait here much longer.�

But I did wait there much longer. MUCH longer. And the hip hop traffic got much worse as time went on; larger gangs of very unsavory-looking characters and I had been obviously stuck there helplessly in an alien neighborhood for over two hours. Pretty soon, my intuition kept needling me, I mean, really needling me. �Just turn on the ignition and drive away from here,� it kept saying, over and over again, very insistently. I began to feel very ridiculous, waiting for a tow truck that never was going to come. I began to review the day, how I had driven all around all weekend with no problem. Why did I suddenly have this electrical burning? What was different about that moment that distinguished it from all the other moments when I had driven with no problem? I realized that what was different was that I had turned on the cruise control. It had been a clear shot from San Pedro toward downtown, I had had a good half-hour of smooth freeway driving up ahead of me so I had set the cruise control for 65 miles per hour, so the problem must be the cruise control, an absolute option that was not necessary for otherwise driving the car.

So I gingerly tested it�I turned on the ignition again (with the cruise control turned off). Car started fine. I waited. The engine ran. No cement smell. No smoke. Hum�.I think the car is actually safe to drive! But instead of simply driving away, I decided to do the right thing and call AAA to cancel the call (as if it actually needed canceling).

�But you�re in Southern California!�

�Listen,� I said, �I have right here in my hand my membership card that says �Auto Club of Southern California,� and I dialed the phone number on the other side that is for within California, why does everybody act like I am dialing the wrong number?�

�Oh, sir, our phones in Southern California are all messed up, while they are being worked on, all calls are automatically being routed to San Francisco. When we find out the call is from Los Angeles, we transfer the call to a Southern California branch. You didn�t dial the wrong number, it�s just that the phones are all messed up.�

But, thinking back to last year at this time when AAA wouldn�t even answer the call, I realized that their phones have been messed up for over a year!

�Well, I�ve been waiting here for over two hours and I can�t wait any longer. I am going to chance driving the car and want to cancel the tow truck.�

�Okay, I�m very sorry we didn�t help you, but let me transfer you to Southern California.�

�I�m sorry, too,� I said.

�I wish San Francisco could have helped you,� she said.

�Me too,� I said.

The tow truck was cancelled and I drove away from the curb. Still somewhat scared (I didn�t know what damage the electrical burning had already caused), I decided to not chance the freeway, but would drive carefully over surface streets. However, that plan was foiled, because as soon as I got into downtown L.A., I found myself suddenly smack in the middle of about eight million demonstrating immigrants. Okay, this was absolutely one hair�s breadth away from finally being my �Falling Down� moment, named after the famous Michael Douglas movie, Falling Down (which, interestingly, was made the same year my car was made) in which Michael Douglas plays an aerospace engineer who loses his job in L.A. and while on the way home from his being laid off, gets stuck in the immovable traffic on the freeway through downtown, so he loses it, he abandons his car where it sits in traffic to walk home to Santa Monica and along the way goes on a killing rampage. This, to me, is the consummate L.A. movie that explains the potentials of life in this city more accurately than any other film ever made, and I was just about to finally live it, myself, right then and there.

The rest of the drive home was uneventful. The next morning, I took my car to my mechanic, who said that it really WAS a dangerous thing, the air bag COULD have blown, and it would take a while to be fixed. Probably his biggest difficulty, though, was getting the parts he would have to replace, as my car is now 13 years old.

I called my boss to say that I was taking a personal day--instead of lying that I was sick. This honesty costs me two days, because personal days, when not used during the school year, can be doubled for use in the summer, whereas sick days are not doubled when not used, but can be banked for later use or else paid for at the end of the school year. I never use my two annual personal days, and therefore get to expand my summer vacation by four more days. But not this summer.

Since the car wouldn�t be ready that day, instead of trying to get a ride to work with somebody on Tuesday, I decided to take the bus. I hadn�t been on the bus for quite some time and thought (ha ha ha) it might be a fun adventure for a change. Actually, I never really minded riding the bus, per se (although I don�t like it when I have to stand up; if you can actually sit down on the bus, it�s really not so bad), it�s the 20-minute long walk up the steep hill from the bus stop to the school, through weeds and mud, that bothers me, but since I am trying to exercise more, this time I felt that that uphill walk would do me good.

I rediscovered, though, that the biggest problem with the bus is all the time that is wasted. My normal driving commute to work (one way) is 45 minutes, but on the bus, it is two hours. I used to accept that by thinking that I can read on the bus, but this time I discovered that the busses now have something new�television. Yuck. �Transit TV,� it is called, and in my view, it�s really weird. It truly does seem like it is its own special creation, some kind of television station for the bus lines, and it presents its own unique mix of weather broadcasts, extreme sports videos, text news articles in Spanish, games, and lots of advertisements, inappropriately placed advertisements, such as the ones for mortgage lenders. What L.A. bus rider is going to go out and get a mortgage? If the Mexican maid, manual laborer, or student (sorry to stereotype the typical bus riders) can�t cough up a couple thousand dollars to buy a used automobile, who is going to go out and get a mortgage on a $700,000 house?

But the worst aspect of Transit TV is that now you can no longer read on the bus (unless, I suppose, you wear earplugs, but then you can�t hear the bus stop announcements). Also, it is mentally very exhausting, because you absolutely CANNOT avoid watching it. I tried for over an hour and realized that it took less energy to simply give in and mindlessly watch it instead of struggling to avoid it. Also, how 1984�and it wouldn�t surprise me if the screens actually had security cameras hidden inside of them.

Bob, my friend who had made AAA call me during my previous foray with them, this time point-blank said out loud what I had only been mentally considering, that the tow truck operator, upon looking up my location, simply would NOT go there into that neighborhood to pick me up, so they had to go through this charade of �we can�t find you, you gave us the wrong location, etc.�

And that seemed to have been confirmed the next day by one of our security guards with whom I conversed while getting a cup of coffee in our school�s kitchen.

�Oh I NEED this,� he said; �I was kept awake from 3:00 in the morning on to daylight because a police helicopter continuously flew overhead.�

�I wonder what was going on,� I said.

�Crime,� was all he said (well, I KNEW that!). �More than ever.�

�Where do you live?� I asked him.

�Near USC,� he told me.

�USC?� I said. �I was stuck near there for over two hours last Sunday, waiting for a AAA tow truck that never came. I was on the corner of Broadway and Martin Luther King Boulevard.�

�Oh yes,� the security guard said. �Well you know,� he emphasized in that Mexican Spanish accent, � there used to be that main AAA office over there on Adams, a few blocks away from there, it�s now closed.�

�Closed? You mean, like they aren�t there any more?�

�They aren�t there no more,� he emphasized. �I don�t know why. But that used to be the main headquarters here. They�re gone. And now there are always cops all over the place. They hide their cars under the freeway overpass.�

�An increase in crime in the area, you think?� I asked him.

�People coming from somewhere else,� he said cryptically. I guess he means drug dealers, perhaps up from Mexico. �I really don�t know what is going on,� he continued, �but it is bad.�

Makes me think of Halliburton and those internment camps they are building. �For an immigrant emergency,� is their explanation. Just what the �immigrant emergency� is that they are expecting and are afraid of, I really have no idea, but the clues seem to be mounting up.

My car was ready Tuesday and a coworker drove me to my mechanic�s. Over $500 in parts and labor. Among other things, he had to replace the control stalk that contains all the switches for operating the cruise control, signal lights, high beam light, windshield wipers, and windshield washer. He couldn�t get the same kind of stalk that I used to have, which was an elegant and precise shiny chrome switch with black-etched lettering. Now it is a fat black plastic device with white-paint letters. It doesn�t really fit very well. It works, but it is clumsy. The invoice described the part as being for a �Chevrolet�. However, the car that parks next to me in my apartment building parking lot is a much newer Cadillac than mine, and his car has the exact same control stalk. Maybe that's now the generic General Motors control stalk.

In my mailbox at home was an advertisement from AAA, offering me a �AAA Premier Upgrade� over the �AAA Plus� card that I already have. For $13.00, for the remainder of this year�s membership (which expires on Halloween), I can increase my towing benefit to 200 miles! The advertising letter said that this upgrade would give me MORE of what I had joined the Auto Club for. The letter, brochure, decal, �Upgrade Activation Certificate,� and return envelope all sailed through the shredder very satisfactorily.

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