I am not having a good day.

It started well enough... I drove in early, so I could drop Kirsten's car off at A&B Sound to finally get her stereo replaced (it was stolen, for the second time, a few weeks ago).

When I got to the store, I spent 10 minutes looking around for the key drop box the claims contact there told me I'd find. There was no key drop box. The only thing available was a little mail slot at the front of the store. Since I was pretty sure that keys just sitting by the front door would be picked up and tossed.

Around 10:30, I got a call from my claims contact there, asking if I could bring by the keys. I said sure, and walked over. When I got there, I went around to the installation bay to drop off the keys and was told that it was already done... I just needed to head upstairs to pay the deductible. Great - the morning was shaping up well.

I paid the claim, went downstairs, and started up the car. I quickly discovered that it wouldn't go into gear. I swore just a little bit, then turned the car off. And the key wouldn't come out of the ignition. By this point, I was more than a little upset.

I calmly told the installer that the CD player worked fine, but he'd done something to the ignition. He immediately denied that there was even the possibility of him having screwed something up. I told him, just to humor me, to take the stereo out and look to see if he'd accidentally snipped a wire. Again, he said there was no way he could have done anything wrong. He then pulled the stereo forward 2 or 3 inches and said "See? It's still not working", to which I replied, "No... I want you to pull the stereo out and actually look at the wiring".

He pulled out the wiring harness for the stereo, and told me that it was all just a plug-in thing, and there's no way he could have screwed things up. He completely missed my point that he could have messed something else up.

He then spent the next 10 minutes trying to shove the stereo back into the car. I left, since I was taking time out of my work day and - at the installer's obstinant insistence - called the mechanic who had just replaced the ignition to have it towed in and looked at.

I just called the mechanic, and they say that there's nothing wrong, and in fact had the key that was stuck in the ignition handed to them. Oh, and since there was nothing wrong with their work, I owe them $90 for towing. Which I now have to raise hell at A&B Sound about and try to get them to pay, since the problem was obviously caused (and possibly cured) by their installer.