by katlipari
If you go into the back office of any Subaru establishment you will find a picture of me, probably with throwing darts puncturing my smiling face and maybe even devil horns doodle on my head, with the words “DO NOT FIX THIS GIRL’S CAR” written below it. I am sure many of you have been waiting for me to get justice after being wronged by the Burlington Subaru one too many times, but alas it does not come easy to me.
Like I have said before my lovely little Subaru legacy is my pride and joy, yes it does have a few scratches from when it was so rudely hit by a parked car as I was backing up, or when the side of my garage suddenly got smaller as I was exiting and broke my mirror, but she is very gorgeous to me! However, my love for my Subaru ends as soon as I step into any Subaru dealership.
I am a regular at many places, Barnes and Noble, Starbucks, my local Target, but I loathe that I have become a regular at the Subaru dealership and since my last exposée, my struggles have continued. We left off with this girlboss being gaslit by the Burlington Subaru and my car still being tainted by their fraudulent procedures. I figured my problems would be resolved over Thanksgiving break when I go to my local Manchester Subaru to get my car fixed, but oh was I wrong.
It begins with my dad making an early morning appointment for me to bring my car in, already not a good start, but I settle into the cold leather seats and find my way to the Manchester Subaru. Mind you this is a newly renovated establishment, what could go wrong! I pull my car up to the service garage at the ass crack of dawn, 8:00 a.m., and see what this Subaru can Suba-do for me, but this time my dad comes with me. Now he is not a big car guy, but Steve will not let any establishment pull a fast one on him. I may have mastered that practice, but this is the first time that the Manchester Subaru is encountering Steven “Karen” Lipari (I’m just kidding he isn’t really a Karen, but he definitely has Karen tendencies).
The troubles begin when Johnson started hyping up my car, “Wow this is a 2015 legacy? It’s in great shape, you could probably get more for it now than when you bought it” Okay, lies, there’s literally scratches and the mirror is all whack. Later, my dad tells me that he “never trusts someone who starts immediately complimenting” so that’s cool I guess I could have avoided lots of Tinder disasters had I known that. Johnson gives us the usual “we’ll take it for a test drive and see what we can do, yada yada yada,” but to avoid being gaslit again I pull up the receipts. I have video evidence of my steering wheel making its own decisions while I am driving, so take that!
Johnson looks at the damning evidence and begins to talk pricing with my dad, about $140 per hour, which sounds like an amazing new minimum wage, but Steve fires back, “Okay well we’ve had this car taken in a few times and it hasn’t been fixed each time we have paid for it so I’ll give Subaru of America a call and see if we can change that price…” Which was the ultimate “let me speak to the manager,” to which Johnson says, “uh we can discuss that after” and then more boring car talk some buzzwords that I recognize, “tires, car, power steering, etc”, but not much else.
I leave my lovely Subaru in the hands of Johnson and the Manchester Subaru and get some breakfast with my dad. We venture home and carry on with our day when Johnson calls up my dad and is basically like, “pwease don’t call Subawu of Amewica just yet” it seems that my dad knows exactly what he is doing, he too has become a girlboss. Later in the afternoon I am told my car is ready, cool, my spirits are high, they aren’t the Burlington Subaru so they have a pretty clean reputation with me and I am not too worried. We pull up to retrieve my car and Johnson makes a little too much small talk with us, I just want my car! But I do overhear that he was able to lower the price due to our past troubles which is pretty baller. I start up my lovely little Subaru and drive off into the sunset with no problems.
I am elated. Ecstatic even. This is the feeling of euphoria that Ben and Jerry’s describes. I have finally gotten justice. Or so I thought! The first few drives everything is fine, but I notice that my steering wheel falls back into its old habits of veering to the right when I come to a stop. I decide not to tell my dad because I have already been through enough haven’t I? I just want to move on.
Despite this major injustice, I persevere, returning to school and taking my lovely little Subaru to and from work, dealing with its steering quirk once again. But it all crumbles December 17th when I make the two and a half hour journey back home for the winter break. The roads were angry that day my friends, thick, sticky, slippery snow attacks me and my lovely little Subaru about an hour into the drive. But I can handle it! Everyone is going slow so I am not super worried, we all stick to 30 miles per hour maximum and I’ll be okay. Until disaster strikes again. Another car zooms by me, probably pushing a whole 50 mph and slushes my entire windshield! I’m blind! I press the brakes, I don’t know what’s ahead so I might as well slow down, but the roads disagreed. I swerved left and right, all I know is that the shoulder is to my right and I slowly drift to the safety of the edge of the road. What was most hurtful was the culprit. It was one of my own. A Subaru Forester was the cause of my demise.
Every single light on my dashboard is lit, most of them I don’t even know what they mean and naturally I call my dad. The only option I can think of is getting me a nice warm hotel for the night, hell I’ll even settle for a motel! A hotel, a motel, a Holiday Inn, I don’t care! Just somewhere safe! My dad laughs and says he is not paying for a hotel (or a motel), he and my mom will come pick me up. So I put my hazards on (great more lights on my dashboard) and take the next exit. I try to find a church because I figured that would be the safest place, yaknow with God being there and all, but I find a little thrift shop and gather myself in that parking lot. I figure I would use the bathroom and then send my parents my location, however another tragedy! No bathrooms! I must face the elements again and find somewhere else to relieve myself. I pull into a gas station, use their facilities, and settle in for over an hour waiting on my parents’ arrival.
As if I wasn’t traumatized enough, my dad decides to scare me when they finally get there. So he is definitely going to be driving alone, I will not be joining him as the fun passenger! I hop in my mom’s car and we take off as I retell my story to which I receive no sympathy. “You should’ve left earlier like we told you” Okay, blaming the victim I see, but I am just ready to be home.
Thankfully my dad doesn’t notice that my steering wheel still has a mind of its own when he drives my lovely little Subaru back, but he agrees with me that I should get snow tires. He once again makes an 8:00 a.m. appointment at Sullivan Tire, but I was able to drop my car off the night before, I will take every bit of peace I can. The next day I pick up my car and notice something funny…my steering wheel is now in sync with the rest of my car. God is real and she works at Sullivan Tire in Bedford, New Hampshire.
Justice has been served, but a part of me is a little frustrated as I suggested this at the beginning, but my proposal was met with laughter, “that’s not going to fix the problem, but good try” Well it seems it did fix the problem, so yeah I will be calling Subaru of America and I will be assuming the position of president as soon as possible.
Categories: around town, feb 8, kat lipari