My Journey to Subaru

This morning at nine, my husband remembered that we had an appointment (at nine) to take our Forester in to get a new door sensor.  For about a week now our 11-year-old car has been lighting up that little picture of a car with its doors ajar, even when each door had been slammed shut twice (just to make sure).  We recently got a new alternator and battery for our dear old clunker, but the door sensor can only be found in a mythical place called a "Subaru dealership".

Adam said that the dealership was easy to get to, but he continually underestimates my ability to get lost.  I have a talent.  I've only lived in Burlington since I was five, so you can't expect me to know my way around.  And anyway the Subaru dealership is in Oakville.

So I got off the highway at Burloak instead of Bronte.  In my mind these two roads are the same thing, but in reality they are on opposite sides of a river.  All the streets connecting to Burloak, can also be found connecting to Bronte.  But Bronte's Wycroft Rd, doesn't connect to Burloak's Wycroft Rd.  And South Service Road, on Burloak's side,  widdles itself down to a depressing dead end.  To further confuse me Bronte Creek Provincial Park is on Burloak.  I drove around for quite some time trying to figure out where I had gone wrong.  There was Wycroft, there was the South Service Road, where was the dealership?  Perhaps it had been torn down and moved to another place, thought I.

I had both my children with me in the car, so while I'm not opposed to asking for directions, I hate when it means unbuckling the offspring.  Only when Jadzia started crying and William suggested "How about we just go home" did I pull into the mall and ask.

The woman working at Reitmans looked at me as if I had three heads when I asked where the Subaru dealership was.  "Isn't there one around here?" I said stupidly.
"Do you mean the one in Oakville? There's one on Wycroft Rd."
"Isn't this Wycroft Rd?"
"Yes but it doesn't connect.  They're going to build a bridge later on."
"Not in the next few minutes I'm guessing."
Reitman's woman gave me directions that exactly matched the directions I already had, but made me clue in that Burloak and Bronte are not the same thing.  Huzah!!

I only had to do one more three-point-turn after that and I got to the mythical land of Subarus (at ten fifteen).  I brought toys and snacks for William and Jadzia while we waited, but I was crazy to think I would need them.  I mean, a room full of cars, how cool is that?  The form that I had to sign before they made the repair had "WAITER" stamped on it in red ink.  They should have an extra stamp for "WAITER WITH KIDS".  Jadzia ran around the showroom chatting with her reflections, while William had a blast climbing inside the cars, playing with the steering wheels and turning on the hazzard lights.  The horn was "accidentally" honked no less than three times (might have been four), all the while a salesman was busy trying to show cars to customers.  Anytime I was expecting the "Psst, Ma'am, can you keep your kids out of the cars" but, to their credit, the Subaru staff didn't say anything. 

I was told I had an hour and a half wait, but the car was done in forty-five minutes.  I imagined the salesguy going back to the garage and telling the mechanics: "Can you hurry up with this woman's car?  She's driving me crazy!"   Or perhaps, like Scotty, they multiply their repair estimates to make them seem like miracle workers.  In any case my door signal only goes on now when I leave the trunk open (giant stroller).