fun recall

no no not a memory recall (but that can be fun too) 

I’m talking about our car being recalled. 

I wasn’t too excited getting this notice. Who is? As I often do, I procrastinated. I finally called the local Toyota dealership and was I surprised by getting a very precise appointment, 11:15. I’m use to a “bring it in the morning or afternoon” type of time precision. I asked about getting a ride home. They came back with a much better idea. I was getting a loaner. 

Our recalled Toyota is over 6 years old so driving around in new car for free was appealing. Now I was motivated to have the car serviced. 

I arrived at their recently rebuild mega car store and was impressed by very efficient processing.  In a matter of 10-15 minutes they pulled-up a new Camry for me to drive.

But not more than a half of mile down the road I had a problem. My ass was burning.

“Officer I couldn’t slow down. My ass is on fire and I don’t know how to turn it off.”

had the seats been marked like this, I would have known

Now that would be a very creative excuse but probably would backfire so I pulled into a parking lot and searched for the heated seat control. I found it and as I cooled, I explored the dashboard controls in the safety of a parking spot. I found this baby was loaded with:

• Bluetooth handsfree phone calling 
• GPS 
• Backup camera 
• hot/cold ass control 
• BSM (figured out what it was later) 
• Satellite radio 
• sunroof (converts to a moon roof at night)

Cruising the highways with free satellite comedy channels is not bad. Later, I checked out the hands free phone by calling my sister. 

We did some comparisons with her new ride bought this year.  It turned out to a most fortunate timely call for me. You need a little background to appreciate the embarrassment she prevented. Some would call it OCD, but I like to consider it an intense method to avoid repeating forgetful incidents I have had in the past. For example, forgetting to lock a door. 

An unfamiliar new feature of this XLE model was it’s keyless system. No key turning required to start. Just push the start button with gear shift in park and foot on the brake. Oh, you do need the key fob inside the car but you could leave it in your pocket. 

My sister explained that she was spoiled by her car’s system because she didn’t need to dig for her keys when returning to her parked car. She just gets near the door and pushes a button on the door to unlock. She asked me to check if my loaner ride did the same. So I stepped outside to check. I locked door, shut it and lifted the handle. It opened. Puzzled I repeated the steps with the same result. After the second time, I tried the back door. It stayed locked. 

I started to laugh. Still on the phone, I told her it was a good thing we had this discussion because of my checking a locked door habit. Anytime I park and lock my car, I always check the door by lifting the handle. It reassures me that I locked the door. On my loaner ride this would have resulted in an embarrassing scene. Picture a man standing next to a park car repeatedly locking, shutting, opening his door. I might have been there for hours.

(proofreading provided by C. F. Eyecare)