A blog by Cameron and Shannon

Update: As you may have read in the comments, Mr. Scott Koch of AutoZone Inc. did indeed contact me, and after relaying him the whole story, he has apologized on behalf of AutoZone and issued me a gift card as recompense. Needless to say, I was pleasantly surprised at the efforts AutoZone takes to defend their reputation, and as such, will be visiting AutoZone again in the future (although probably not that particular franchise location), and I encourage you to do the same.

Well. Have I got a story for you.

As you may have noticed, Shannon offhandedly mentioned our car not starting yesterday. It’s true; we climbed in, I turned the key, and she (I guess it’s a she) made sad clicky sounds. Of all mornings, too — the iPhone was being announced at noon, and if you work for a company whose primary export is plastic/metal/rubber crap for your iPhone, that’s kind of a big deal.

So we had to call our friend Joey, who was gracious enough to arise from slumber and come jump us. I mean our car. Jump-start our car. In any case, it took forever, because my jumper cables are really small, and the battery was really, really dead.

Fast forward to after work. I again had to get a jump to leave (using someone else’s cables this time — actually, we tried with my cables, and then this standalone car charger thing that plugged into a wall and may or may not have been broken or fried my car to a crisp, and then some real man’s jumper cables) and picked Shannon up on the way to Autozone. Fairly straightforward, right? Kind of?

Google Maps told me there was an Autozone right around the corner from Shannon’s office, so I headed there. However, I didn’t take the actual locale into consideration. Even though it’s next to the Farmer’s Market, which we visit regularly, I hadn’t been aware of the area’s demographics on the rest of the week, when upper-middle-class white people aren’t browsing for organic zucchini.

I parked and Shannon waited in the car while I walked in. I was wearing jeans, NewBalances, and a shirt from Urban Outfitters. I’m pretty sure I was the only white dude in the entire zip code. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t mind in the least, but I’ll admit — I was feeling significantly whiter than usual. I was extremely out of place.

But, my car needed a battery, and we were here, so I waited in line, and eventually the guy behind the counter directed me to a fellow. This fellow was not wearing an AutoZone shirt. He didn’t have an AutoZone nametag. I’m not entirely certain he was an AutoZone employee. I would later notice that he also didn’t have three of his fingers. But hey, he was here to switch out my battery, so whatever.

I’m not mechanically inclined. I tend to burn, cut, or puncture myself when confronted with anything more than hanging pictures. I can do the basic car work that is listed on my Level I Man Contract (change a tire, check the oil, check the air), but all I know about batteries I had learned that morning when consulting my owner’s manual in preparation for the first jumpstart, and given that a teeny 9-volt can zap your tongue pretty good if you ascribe to that method of testing (which I do, it’s sort of lamely macho), I figure a full-size car battery can do a number like that on your whole body pretty easily. So the guy introduced himself (I’ll call him “Joe”) and got to work.

“You in town for the country music thing?” Joe said. “Nope, I’m from here, just came from work.” Then there was a pause. I felt the need to explain my position further. “My wife works downtown, and this place was the closest.” Joe: “… That’s right. It is the closest.”

Talk about awkward. Can’t we just do the battery thing and be done with it? I couldn’t get by without some heavyhanded implications that I was where I didn’t belong. However, the combination of my momentary (self-righteous) idealism (I didn’t want to leave a place for anything that could ever be construed as racial reasons) and the the more practical that my car was already turned off (and wouldn’t start again) mean Joe and I were gonna have to see this one through to the end.

Once he got the battery out, I bought the new one, and the guy at the register sold me some petroleum jelly stuff (for a buck fifty, so no big deal) that he said would protect the connectors.

“Make sure he cleans off those contacts ‘cause you got a corrosion problem. And put this stuff on there.”

Joe, 5 minutes later, after hooking in and tightening the new battery, holding the jelly packet:

“And I don’t know what the hell this stuff is for!”

Not wanting to waste my buck fitty, I mumbled some weak sauce about how well they told me that you were supposed to put it on and so maybe you should I don’t know put it on, so Joe squirted it over the top of both contacts. “See? That’ll be fine. That’ll melt right in there. Yeah. Perfect.” Whatever.

I started it up. No clicky, just vroom. Great. Joe turned to me. “You know, I charge a small fee for this.” (pointing at battery)

Back up. You know how I said I’m not good with accents? I’m really not good. Plus, we were about 3 feet from a car engine (the hood was still up). I’m bad enough with accents that I tend to just assume that whatever I heard was incorrect. So I heard “small fee”, but maybe he said something about “small feet”, maybe he was referring to the way the battery was sitting in the frame, or the screws that held it …

“What?”

“I charge a small fee for this.”

“Sorry what?”

”I charge a small fee.” (If I was Joe I’d get impatient with my comperehension too.)

So, Joe wanted money. For putting in my battery. Which I’m like 98% sure AutoZone does for free. However, I still had a sneaking feeling that Joe fell outside of AutoZone’s general jurisdiction, and was just some guy that hung out in the parking lot, put in batteries, and demanded cash.

“Awwww, y’all charge for this?” (I’m not good at being mean to strangers.) “Man, I did a good job.” “How much you want?” “I’m a good guy. Fifteen bucks.”

This all might have been a more effective bargaining process for Joe if my battery wasn’t already in and my car wasn’t already running. However, he really didn’t have any leverage, unless he could unscrew the battery really fast before I backed out and drove off.

I happened to have seven bucks in my pocket, even though I basically never carry cash.

“I have seven bucks. That’s all I got.” “Aw, man!” “Dude, you should have said something before you put the battery in.” “I di …” (Joe abandoned the “I did!” defense mid-word because we both know he didn’t.)

I gave him the seven bucks. If I had had fifteen I like to think that I would have given him that much; I’m not sure. He did put my battery in, after all, and I’m pretty sure that cash isn’t on top of any AutoZone paycheck.

I don’t appreciate him scrounging me at the last minute, but then, I don’t freelance in a parking lot with a monkey wrench to get by. He did a favor for me and ordered recompense after the fact, which isn’t really the proper order of things, but if I was to ever start whining about the inequalities and injustices of life, I can’t imagine I’d have a right to include this scenario.

In any case, my car runs fine now, and next time I’ll probably stick to a different AutoZone where all the employees wear AutoZone polos and AutoZone hats, but I hope Joe does all right for himself.