The Decline of Civilization part 2

Sunday night, our car died on the side of the road.

It was a blessing that we had ended up taking two vehicles to town that day, and come home caravan-style from Bible class. My husband managed to drive on until the end of at a very easy-to-find intersection along our country route and a major highway. 

Thankfully we were within cell phone service. I begin to examine the insurance app on our smartphone, but was stopped when they asked me to log in. That is my fault; I do not have that password memorized. Rather than spend 10 minutes trying to reset the password, we decided to call the insurance company and talk to a human being. Next problem: nowhere on the app was there a phone number to be found! Finally got one from Google and dialed it. 

"We will connect you with an agent to give you a quote!" said the robot on the other end of the "line." 

While my husband attempted to get to the correct department for roadside assistance, the rest of us moved into the other vehicle to see what would happen. It was about 27F outside but we were close to home, as soon as we knew what the plan was we could know whether we could all go home send a few back, how long the wait would be, etc.

The first trouble was finding a human who had the roadside assistance inside information (as in, how to contact them in the first place). All of the humans kept transferring the call to the wrong department. My husband quickly told the last salesman, "Wait! Are you going to transfer me to ____?? Because that is the wrong number." 

At last, ten minutes later, the right department! The conversation went something like this: 

Insurance rep: "So you're in ______ town..." 

Husband: "No, I'm not; I'm at an intersection between ___road and ___Hwy."

"Well, the computer says you are in _____ town."

"No, I'm within 15 miles between these two towns, at an intersection between ___road and ___Hwy"

"The computer says your phone is located at _____town."

"No, it is not."

"Sorry, I cannot get the computer to change your location." 

"Well get me through to the local town's towing company, they'll know exactly where I am."

A little while later: "I'm sorry, the tow truck companies are all booked up.  You'll have to call someone yourself. Send us a receipt."

By now 30 minutes had passed (I'm not kidding!). Husband told us all to go home, he was going to stay with the vehicle, although he was wondering how far the towing companies were booked out... till April??. He eventually found one tow truck 40 minutes away, who was not booked but could do one more tow before closing time. 

(Interestingly, the tow truck driver was from a town 2-1/2 hours away, who worked down here... I didn't know we had a shortage of tow trucks/drivers???)

Two hours later all was done and husband was home. Thankfully it was not a worse situation; it worked out as best as it could be for all of us. 

There are a few things I will always wonder about: why didn't the insurance dispatcher just look us up on Maps on her smartphone? I can understand that she couldn't get the computer program to cooperate, but was she allowed to do some manual work and just figure stuff out on her own? I guess you can't get around the "proper" way that business has to be done with the computer for records and things, but what, oh what are they going to do if we mail them a paper receipt?