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Friday 10 April 2015

KEEPING IT REAL with FRIZZY LIZZY


Hi dear friends and followers, I am pleased to see you here. Today is Frizzy Lizzy day, so take 5, put your feet up and enjoy the story, thank you


KEEPING IT REAL with FRIZZY LIZZY
Hello, again, it's me, Frizzy Lizzy. Thank you for allowing me to share some thoughts with you again this weekend.

Did you ever have something happen to you when you were quite young and find out the reason for it when you were a lot older? I doubt that such things take place very often in our lives but when they do occur, you usually know it, don't you? Maybe I have had one in my life, maybe not. You can be the judge of that.

It seems that sometimes men like to hoodwink women because we are female. They think that we are incapable of understanding the simple things that come together to explain the intricacies of some of the things in the world around us.

For example, some years ago, I was attending a very large business conference in the city of Winston-Salem, North Carolina. It was expected to draw thousands of people to the city's Coliseum for learning and motivational speakers. This was not the first time that I had been to such a get-together, and I had the pleasure of helping a woman who was traveling alone for the first time, to feel safe.

It was a rainy day and the wind was blowing from every direction when we arrived at the motel to check-in. I helped my friend to her room and it was as we were getting her settled that we found that the lock on the door of her room did not work. We tested it and the door barely stayed closed with no semblance of locking.

I went back to the front desk with the key to the non-locking door in my hand and told the desk clerk that the lock on the door did not work. He told me that the lock was not working because of El Niño. “El Niño,” I said to myself. Then I asked the clerk, “What do you mean? Did El Niño break the lock when he stayed in that room? Are you telling that to me because I'm a woman or because I'm a blond – or both?”

The clerk found himself unable to explain what El Niño, the warm current in the southern Pacific Ocean that influences our weather or anything else, had to do with the broken lock. He gave my friend another room with better amenities, and to me this story to share.

Going back to things that took place when I was quite young, I always think of my late father.

My father was a wonderful man. It's strange, how I grew up, but I adored him to the point that I wanted to be like him more so than I wanted to emulate my mother. He worked hard to provide for a family with six children and I remember him best for his gentleness and sunny attitude.

I also recall that he was mechanically challenged and probably did not know which end of a screwdriver was the handle. I did not inherit that from him, nor did I wish to grow-up like that, so I took things apart instead of playing with dolls, and read about how things were made instead of the usual books that young girls were reading.

Our first family car was a 4-door 1953 Buick Special. My father bought it used in 1956 and he soon found a mechanic that he thought he could trust to maintain it for him. That mechanic was a wolf who saw my dad as a nice, fat sheep, ready for a shearing, to put it mildly. When I look back on it, that guy was not a wolf. He was a thief.

Here I am, 45 years later, dealing with repairs to my own car. I seldom had questions about the necessity or correctness of a repair, but there was one time I did.

I was driving a 1992 Chrysler New Yorker Fifth Avenue that needed repairs. I took it to the Chrysler dealer to have the bearing in the passenger side front wheel replaced. It was making noise. That's how I knew it was what needed replacement. The car was 9 years old and such a repair was reasonable to me. I knew how the repair was to be performed because I took the time to research it, down to the last dab of grease, and when it was done I found the price fair and reasonable, paid the bill, and drove away.

It was not apparent right away, but something was amiss. My car was not accelerating like it should. It felt like something was holding it back.

I drove it to do my Saturday's shopping and the longer I drove it, the worse it was running. Finally, I got curious about the latest repair done and I got out of the car and stood next to the driver's side front wheel. It was radiating heat like it was on fire! The bearing was working well, but the disc brakes were stuck and that was why my car was running like something was holding it back! I immediately went home and took the car back to the dealer the first thing on Monday morning.

Repairs were done by the close of business Monday and I picked my car up after work. When I saw that the repairs were to cost me $750, I asked the service advisor why. He told me that there was likely a burr of metal on the piston of the brake caliper that got caught against the bore of the wheel cylinder and kept the brake on that wheel from fully releasing. That caused such heat damage that they had to replace the brake rotor, the brake caliper assembly, the brake pads, and the wheel bearing and that cost $750. I suppose he thought that I would stand there and look amazed. He was wrong.

I asked him if he was telling me that because I was a woman, a blond, or both. Then I asked him to take me to the general manager of the dealership, not the service manager, but the general manager. He was quick to oblige me.

He spoke first and told the general manager what had to be done to make proper repairs to my car. Then it was my turn to talk.

I asked the general manager if he understood how the brake calipers were made. He looked puzzled by that question, probably because it came from a middle-aged blond woman. He said that he did know the process.

Then I related how the cylinder is made of a steel casting that is considerably softer than the piston of the caliper, which is made from 4140 steel, turned, ground, and polished, and in that form is not subject to having little burrs come off and lodge against the bore of the wheel cylinder because it is so smooth and hard compared to the cast steel over which it moves. Further, I pointed out all of the possibilities for the mechanic making the repairs to err, causing the brakes to lock in the applied position!

The general manager kept that invoice and I did not pay anything for the additional repairs.

I'm sure that there are times when I have had things put over on me because I thought they were correct and the other person had a better knowledge of them than I did. I don't raise hell without a good reason because I don't want to be caught without a sound argument. That's why I almost never ask my doctor, dentist, or tax advisor if they are telling me what they are telling me because I'm a woman, a blond, or both.

Thank you very much again, dear friends, for visiting my blog. Please share your thoughts with us, if you will. have a great Weekend.
 ڰۣIn Loving Light from the Fairy Ladyڰۣ

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