You might not be able to relate, but for me, not getting my way is more of a rule than an exception. Worse yet, “my way” has no entertainment value whatsoever. The “highway,” however, in my opinion, is Hollywood material!
I want to illustrate this with an example: our move to the desert. Let’s look at my way first. This is how I imagined our relocation would go down: The moving costs would be within our budget. Our belongings would arrive safely at our new home. All extraordinary expenses would be covered by reserve assets or insurance. And we would be living happily ever after. Yawn.
Now the highway version, which, of course, is how it really happened: Our budget did not match up to the moving company’s cost estimate. The movers broke some of our belongings and lost others. They even broke a drawer in an IKEA cabinet that was already in our new home. And during transport, the master bedroom mattress had morphed from comfy-firm to butterscotch-soggy. The insurance was only liable for a couple of cents per pound per article, causing our calculator to run out of zeros when we tried to figure out the reimbursement for items such as my 0.04 ounce “heavy” headphones. In other words, the monetary compensation for our loss would have furnished a flea circus, at best. Hence, we abstained from filing a claim altogether. That’s when things turned. (I guess in a movie that is called a “climax.”)
Grateful that we would not report the incident to their boss, the movers lowered the bill to make up for the damage. While it wasn’t enough to break even (let alone pay for any repair or replacement) the deduction at least cut down our moving expenses.
Later that evening, as I was setting up the guest room, I noticed that the nightstand we brought from our old home was from IKEA and had a drawer that was just like the one the movers had broken. Since I did not need that drawer for the nightstand, I was able to restore the office cabinet at no extra cost.
A couple of days later I went on a hike. In the middle of nowhere I stumbled upon a pair of headphones someone had lost; they were an exact replica of the 0.04 ounce “heavy” headphones that had gone missing during our move! And that afternoon, as I was unpacking our files, our mattress’s warranty (which I didn’t even know we had) fell into my hands. It was still valid and three weeks later, a brand new mattress was delivered at no charge. That same week, the deposit from our former landlord was in the mail. The amount was higher than we had expected. With that we were back on budget and did not have to touch our reserve assets (which we did not have anyhow.)
Fast-forwarding to the result of my case study: Ultimately we were compensated for everything and then some, considering that we ended up with a brand new mattress. Granted, the ride wasn’t smooth and had more twists and turns than a pretzel. But you tell me: What was more entertaining? My way or the highway?
Brigitte Schneider
aka Ms. Dora The Explorer
Copyright © 2018, Brigitte Schneider. If you wish to quote text from this article contact the author by leaving a comment.
