Value Meal

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Value Meal

You know I claim I don’t like to complain, but it does seem that’s mostly what I do. Since I’m trying to be honest today, I think I should honestly say I don’t like to complain. But today I will. I probably will tomorrow, too.

I really do try to be honest, and I want others to be honest with me too. I think I have two examples which are bothering me today, so let’s get down to brass tacks, which I think means, getting to the heart of the business. Brass tacks must be used underneath the fabric, and where people can see, the upholsterers must use some other kind of tack.

Anyway, I was really excited to have an Arby’s French Dip sandwich on the way to teach one of my night classes. I usually leave the high school with plenty of time to get something to eat before my college classes at 5:00, and I was cutting it pretty close. The French Dip, for those who are unfamiliar with one of the most delicious sandwiches ever invented, is roast beef on a stale bun. This must have been popular back when bread didn’t have all the preservatives, but the reason you don’t mind having a stale bun is because you dip the whole thing in au jus.

Perhaps another explanation is necessary here if you don’t know what au jus is. The Encarta dictionary, which pops up on demand in my word processing program, tells us that it means “in it’s own juice”. I think it is French. In other words, meat juice served with meat. I would have guessed it was salty water dyed brown, but even if it is just brown salty water, it is also delicious. You dip the sandwich, soak up the salty goodness of au jus, and “Voila”, which is also French for “there you are!”, the formerly stale bun is now a sop, which means “food dipped in liquid”. I love the Encarta feature – who cares if it is right? Does this mean a donut dipped in coffee is also a sop?

I think by now you understand my attraction to the French Dip sandwich has more to do with the au jus than the sandwich. Which is why I was not too pleased when I opened my order, after driving 10 miles to where I could eat a sopping sandwich, and found out there was no au jus.

I know it is probably an honest mistake, but that’s what we are discussing today, isn’t it? An honest mistake is one not necessarily made on purpose, but still upsetting nonetheless. I was too far away to go back and get the delicious accompaniment to my now mostly just roast beef and stale bun sandwich, so I suffered in silence, and really, can I take offense if someone forgot to give me my au jus? I just love saying that phrase.

Now let’s move to another “honest mistake”, which I think cost me one hundred dollars today. My daughter drives the Jeep, and the starter quit working, so I paid five hundred dollars yesterday to get it fixed. No complaints yet, since this is about typical for that car ever so often. I understand cars don’t last forever, and I do want mechanics to be there when I need them, so sometimes I may have to be the one making sure they stay in business. Maybe next week it will be you.

So my daughter gets in the Jeep this morning, and since it was below freezing this morning, she turned on the rear defroster. Again, the car won’t start. So she calls me while I am in class, so I have to ignore her call and the text, which tells me her car won’t start again. By the time I call her at lunch, she has read my mind and called the shop to tow it back and see what is wrong.

So here’s the report I get later in the day. Surprise! The wiring for the starter and the defroster are somehow connected! And it cost me one hundred dollars for the mechanic to find this out. When I called to make the payment over the phone, I asked about having the towing waived.

For the uninitiated, if the car doesn’t work and it’s the shops fault, you usually aren’t charged to have the car towed back in. So when I questioned the towing charge, the person in charge waived it much too quickly. I mean it was a wiring problem, not a starter problem, and how could they have predicted they were wired together?

Here’s what I think happened. Yank on the starter wires and you might short out the defroster wires. But they still got another hundred dollars from me.


This is another episode of “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Dane Allred”. From the weekly broadcast of “Abundance”. Tune each week from 7 to 8 P.M. Mountain Standard Time (9 to 10 EST) or listen on any web browser at www.k-talk.com.