I had been married for two years at this point. I also had a gym membership for a very fancy gym that my company paid for. It had a sauna, heated pool, all kinds of snazzy things (for ten times the cost of a Planet Fitness membership). Work paid for a huge chunk of it, and I loved it. Let’s say my name is Ryan Stevenson.

One day, I’m at a location I had never been to, near my wife’s work. She was my guest and had also never been to that location. 

They had Starbucks and water and protein bars for sale. My wife grabbed a coffee and pulled out her credit card.

Cashier: “Oh no, we don’t take money; we just bill your account.”

Wife: “Oh well, don’t you need our name or our card number?”

Cashier: “Of course not! EVERYONE recognizes RYAN STEVENSON. How could I not?! It’s wonderful to have you with us again, Mr Stevenson.”

My wife was quite impressed and amused.

Our assumption after the fact was the cashier/worker thought I was bringing a date by the gym, or some such, and was trying to be my wingman or help me out.

She likely got my name from when I swiped my badge to open the gate, as it flashes our photos to the staff. 

Still, a funny moment of, “Why on earth would I need to card your date? He’s a LEGEND!”

For a bit of context: my family lives in a row home, and we petitioned for a handicap spot in front of our house because both of my parents have mobility problems. We got the spot, but there’s a big honkin’ tree right in front of our house that blocks the opening of the passenger side doors. (Yes, it should have been taken out before they put the signs up. We are WELL aware.) When it comes time for us to go out, my dad (the only driver) has to pull the car forward into a sort of double-parked position to make room for us to open the passenger doors and get in, so we stand on the curb while we wait.

Now, on to today’s episode of “how can life mess with me this time”.

I was getting ready to go to work, standing on the curb while my dad moved the car into a position where I could get into it. While waiting for him to go through his routine of “get in, start car, scroll through fifty radio stations on his phone until he finds the same five songs he likes”, I hear some rustling in the tree above my head. I don’t think much of it, because it’s a little windy outside.

Then I hear a crack above my head, and two things fall and land on me.

The first is a thin branch, not very long but very fragile, doing no damage and kind of just rolling down my back.

The second is a big, fuzzy, freaked-out squirrel, landing directly on my head and scrambling around on my head, my shoulders, and my arms.

So, my dad gets to enjoy the lovely view of me doing some sort of macabre interpretation of the Macarena with a hot cup of coffee and a purse with a squirrel using me as its own personal climbing wall.

It eventually jumped off of me and scampered off, leaving me with a handful of red scratches on my face and neck that drew a bit of blood. My arms were at least safe because of my jacket, but my coffee was now all over my clothes. I looked like I had been attacked by a cat with an attitude problem.

I took one look at my dad, who was cackling like a madman in the car, took out my phone, and told work that I needed to go get checked out because I had been accosted by a squirrel.

It would have been a lot better if my boss hadn’t started laughing too.

I’m the author of this story. For a bit of clarification, when insurance claims are brought in, and the insurance company sets up a rental, the rental coverage is, by default, set for two days. This gives us time to prepare the estimate, and the insurance company to review it. Once the estimate is sent in, the insurance company extends the rental out based on the predicted completion date.

Sometimes, customers don’t realize that part, and they call the shop in a panic because they only have two days of rental coverage. I clarify the situation to them and explain that the insurance company will automatically extend it out, and I send over an email to whoever their adjuster is as a quick courtesy to ease their worries. Normally, this is enough for them, and it puts their minds at ease.

Not with this customer, though.

At the time of writing, repairs are well underway, and we’re going to be wrapping up by the end of the week. The parts are in the paint booth getting painted, and we’re waiting on one other part before we’re finished. As per norm, the insurance company has extended the rental out, with a few extra days of breathing room in case of any delays.

The customer calls the shop, furious. She’s screaming that she’s coming to get her car, that she doesn’t want the repairs done anymore, and she’s taking it to a shop that claims they can fix it in less than a day, and she’s already turned in the rental because they only gave her two days.

I explained to her that the repairs are underway, and the rental was automatically extended. She doesn’t listen, stating that she’d already turned the rental in, and that it’s somehow OUR fault that she’s without a car.

No matter what she says, she won’t listen, and she hangs up.

Less than ten minutes later, she comes storming into the shop and demands her car back. No “hello”, no “hi, can I talk to someone about my car”. Just outright “Give me my car”.

Given she’s the one I just spoke to on the phone, I call my manager over in hopes that he’ll get through to her that the repairs are already underway, and that we can’t give her a car that’s still disassembled and unfinished. He also tells her that if she does take the car, she’ll have to pay the full amount, up front, because the insurance company won’t cover the repairs if she doesn’t get them finished at our shop.

When she started repeating her spiel that she had turned in the rental already, my manager even called her out and said that it was entirely her fault that she doesn’t have a car now, and that we’d even advised how long repairs would take.

I threw her a bone and tried reaching out to her adjuster to get her put back into a rental. By chance, I have both her phone number and email, so I leave her a message and send her an email to try to get the customer put back into a rental. By luck, the adjuster can get her rental going again…but they won’t have availability until tomorrow, meaning the customer will have to take an Uber out of the shop anyway.

I have no sympathy whatsoever for her stupidity.

Related:
Not Much Assurance About The Insurance, Part 25
Not Much Assurance About The Insurance, Part 24
Not Much Assurance About The Insurance, Part 23
Not Much Assurance About The Insurance, Part 22
Not Much Assurance About The Insurance, Part 21

We’re an auto shop that gets insurance claims brought to us primarily from an insurance company whose mascot is a little talking reptile with a British accent.

When it comes to any form of insurance claim, there is one golden rule: the insurance company will only cover costs if you are actually getting a vehicle repaired at our shop or if the vehicle is a total loss per their system. They won’t pay just for an estimate, and to get a full, comprehensive estimate, we have to do a teardown of the vehicle (disassemble where the damage is to assess for further damages), which comes with labor fees.

We’ve had a customer who cannot seem to make up his mind about whether or not he’s bringing his car in. His appointment was for one date, but he wasn’t able to drop it off because the rental car company had nothing available. Our main estimator was on vacation at the time, so I offered our usual alternative, which is to get photos of the vehicle and damages and email them to the insurance adjuster for a visual estimate. No problems there, he lets me do so, and I email it over.

The adjuster sends over the estimate, and once I have the estimate in the system, I call the customer to see when he would like to drop off so I can get a rental set up for him. He doesn’t answer, and after several days, I cancel the assignment.

When he does finally drop off (two and a half weeks later), and I have to reopen his assignment, he refuses to sign one of the authorization forms. We have two forms that customers have to fill out, one being authorization for teardown and repair, and the other to authorize insurance companies to pay us directly for repairs.

He refuses to sign the second form because he decides he doesn’t want repairs; he just wants an estimate. I explain to him that we have a visual estimate from the insurance company, but if he wants a full teardown estimate, he will have to pay the labor costs because the insurance company won’t pay just for an estimate.

Cue almost twenty minutes of back-and-forth of him not getting that the insurance company isn’t going to pay us to just write him an estimate if he’s not getting repairs done. I have to use an analogy and compare it to a landlord paying his tenants to live in another house to emphasize that this does not work. Eventually, my manager has to step in and explain it to him in the exact same terms.

I end up tuning out the rest of the conversation as it’s akin to talking to a brick wall, and he storms out. I canceled his assignment and moved on with my day.

Two hours later, he comes back in and says he’ll drop off for repair per his lawyer’s advice, so I have to reopen his assignment again. He says he’ll drop back off later, that he needs to come up with money for the rental deposit, and fills out the forms.

It’s been a week. He still hasn’t come back, and I just know that as soon as I cancel his assignment for the third time, he’ll show back up.

Related:
Not Much Assurance About The Insurance, Part 23
Not Much Assurance About The Insurance, Part 22
Not Much Assurance About The Insurance, Part 21
Not Much Assurance About The Insurance, Part 20
Not Much Assurance About The Insurance, Part 19

It’s me, the author of this story, with a sort of comical one from the same school year. It’s how I ended up meeting one of my best friends during that year before I moved.

Partway through the school year, we got a new transfer student in my class. I’ll call her S. Now, for a bit of context, I was a bit on the short side and chubby (5′ even, or about 152cm, and about 120lbs, or 54kg), a bookish goody-two-shoes who preferred books and drawing over sports and socializing, and as mentioned before in a previous story, I’m autistic, so I was a prime target for bullying

Within two days of her being in our class, S had singled me out as a target. It was awful. S was nearly twice my size and stood a good head and a half taller than me, so I couldn’t fight back in any way. Among other things, she stole my clothes while I was changing in the locker room and ran to the other side of the gym, and I couldn’t go after her because I was in my underwear, and she pinned me up to the lockers by my throat more than once because I tried to tell her off. Teachers wouldn’t do anything more than a slap on the wrist, and when she did get in trouble, she knew it was me and doubled down on her bullying.

One day, I had been in the sixth-grade English classroom during lunch because I had volunteered to help my teacher rearrange our desks to make room for our upcoming lesson project (writing impromptu scripts and making performances). The desks were arranged in two rows on either side of the classroom, leaving a narrow walkway between the two rows so the students in the front rows could get to their desks.

While I was finishing up, I’d stepped into one of these walkways to help write the lesson plan on the board, and my teacher stepped out… and S stepped in, seeing me by myself, and decided to trap me in that little walkway by getting directly in front of me in such a way that I couldn’t even move the desks to get out of the way.

I don’t remember exactly what was said, pretty sure S was taunting me and trying to goad me into doing something. What I do remember, however, is that I was getting pretty tired of her bullying me, so I braced against the wall behind me for a moment and threw myself forward.

According to my dad, I have linebacker shoulders (straight and wide) and I tackled S halfway across the classroom to get her out of my way. I don’t know how I managed that, I just know that I did, and by some blessing, I didn’t get in trouble for it. My teacher came back in right before the tackle, and saw how S had me pinned in, so she vouched for me.

I thought it was over, but the following day during recess, S decided to pin me in again, this time looming over me while I was sitting with my back to a railing. She was furious with me because she had gotten caught red-handed in bullying me, and I’m not sure what she was planning to do. Thankfully, one of the teachers saw her and yelled at her to back off, which gave me an opportunity to run, bolting into the field.

In my previous story, I mentioned my asthma. Being that I was already out of shape and asthmatic, there was no way I was going to actually get away from S, but maybe the prey animal instinct kicked in or something, and I hoped that someone would notice that something was wrong. Sure enough, she caught up quickly, and the next thing I knew, she tackled me right back, slamming full-force into my back and sending me tumbling head over hind-end through the grass for several feet. Somehow, I landed sitting upright.

You could hear a pin drop in the grass. The entire sixth-grade class stopped what they were doing and stared at me and S, because S had tackled me hard enough to possibly hurt me. Perhaps they’d finally realized just how serious things were? I don’t really know. My mind was still playing catch-up with what had just happened, and one of my other friends ran over to make sure I was okay and to help me up.

After the initial shock wore off, I did the only thing I could think I could do… I laughed.

I started laughing my eleven-year-old butt off. I don’t know why, but it just ended up being completely hysterical to me. Of all the things S could do, she just tackled me and sent me rolling like a bowling ball!

The rest of the day is a bit fuzzy after that. I remember going to the nurse to make sure I wasn’t hurt, then to the principal’s office in case I wanted to make a proper complaint. I don’t remember much else. I don’t even remember if S got brought to the office.

The next day, S found me in the hall at my locker. I had braced for the worst… but she apologized, and ended up laughing. Apparently, my laughing after she tackled me like that made me seem a lot tougher than I looked, because she’d tried to actually cause some sort of harm and I laughed it off. It caused her to end up developing a strange sort of respect for me, because no one was brave or crazy enough to laugh at something like that.

The rest of the year, she and I were actually great friends. She came to me for help on our classwork because her grades were slipping, and other bullies weren’t exactly jumping at the bit to go after their old perfect target with S in my corner. We ended up actually bonding, making it pretty sad when I moved and had to transfer out, causing us to fall out of touch. Sometimes I look back on those days and wonder how she’s doing.