There's a guy in Stroud who really pisses me off.

He's a mechanic, which automatically makes him crooked. My Dad is probably the only honest mechanic in the world, but because I don't want to bother him every time any little thing goes wrong with my vehicle, I use this guy in stroud sometimes. Let's call him Mr Swindler.

Mr Swindler attends church with my mother in law, and he's got the Sandy Cove market cornered. All the old folks think he gives them a GREAT deal on car repairs.

This morning I took my Caravan in to Mr Swindler's garage to have a tail light and a head light fixed. He had known I was coming. I called him Friday and he said he'd be totally free to work on the car Monday. As soon as I got there he explained the complex procedure such a job entails. Of course fixing a seized lock is the single most difficult thing that could ever be done by anyone. EVER! Seriously, brain surgeons think they have it rough! Brain surgery is a WALK IN THE PARK compared to the delicate business of freeing a seized van hatch! Then he told me that the seized lock was entirely my fault and that it would take all day to fix. Fixing it would require cutting a panel away with a saw and replacing it, of course. So I went across the street to Tim Hortons and grabbed a coffee.

I've never been to Saskatchewan, but I imagine that it looks a LOT like Stroud. Stroud is the land that time forgot. All corn fields and highway. Aside from the Tim Hortons and the KFC, there's not much of anything around. There hasn't even been a single house built for the past 30 years. It's really...odd. Not a place you want to be stranded with no escape. So I got on the GO bus and went to Barrie. (I haven't been on a bus since I was about seventeen. It was an odd little adventure).

Anyway, I spent the day in Barrie and arrived back in Stroud to check on my car at 2:30.

Long story short: Mr Swindler told me that he was waiting for a part that was accidentally delivered to Midland, and it would be another hour before my car would be ready. I told him to put the car back together and I'd be on my way. In the five and a half hours between the time I dropped it off and the time I picked it up, he'd managed to change a lightbulb in the headlight.

I won't be going to him again. Today I came to the concrete conclusion that he's incompetent, and probably scamming the old people of Sandy Cove. I've never payed him less than I'd expect to pay at a proper business, and his service is terrible. He's a drama queen who thinks he's the freaking Lone Ranger, bailing people out of terrible trouble with his amazing light bulb changing skillz.

Loser.