Nu? New?

I'm sure I am not alone in shopping for one thing and ending up leaving with more than that one item.  In fact I bet you wouldn't be surprised if I said this happened to me when I went shopping for new tires for my 1989 Mazda Miata.   Oh I got the 4 new tires and an alignment and...

Go ahead.  You can tell me what nice new treads I have - I need to hear positives.  You see my day became longer when  the manager of Goodyear came in holding the oversized pull I had attached to the slide of the rear plastic window's zipper.  My eyes must have shown my shock. He stated that he couldn't understand where this pull fit and asked if I could show him how it worked.  Help him? How could I help him if he was holding it in his hand?

I followed him back out to the garage as I explained it fit into the slide of the zipper.  You see when I arrived, I had flipped the convertible's lid up and latched it in case the skies started to spit, leaving the rear window open as I often do.  The forecasted rain wasn't due til evening but the heavens looked a bit foreboding.  So anyhow when the car was ready, the manager decided rather than leave it as it was, he would zipper the back window shut. In his zeal of good intentions he had inadvertently pulled off the slide, breaking the zipper. As he kept repeating that he couldn't find the piece, he must have heard panic in my voice as I said, it won't help if I find it because it has broken off.  I did retrieve half of it.  Who knows where the other half must have flown? as I muttered, " Now what am I going to do?"

He didn't say a thing. I went back in the shop to pay my bill.  I told him that I had to replace the zipper once before and there was a place on the north end of town. He told me that he would take care of the bill just to let him know the cost.  So I headed immediately over to the boat/car repair place where I was informed that the entire top would have to be removed to replace the zipper and the top would not fit properly afterwards as it tends to shrink with age. (Just like people I thought) Oh great so now a new top is needed probably running just shy of a $1000.  I called the Goodyear's manager and shared the GOOD news... It will be at least 3 weeks until they can get to it. Do you think he's still footing the bill?