Monday, June 11th, 2018
I had a really cool thing happen today.
Want to hear about it?
Well, even if you don’t, you’re going to anyway 😉 It’s kind of a long story, but it’s worth it.
Right before we left for Hawaii, my car’s moonroof stopped working – while it was open. This whole dilemma wouldn’t have been an issue if it had stopped working while it was closed, but that’s a vent for another day. Anyway, it was just one more thing to deal with right before leaving, but the research we did said that replacing a moonroof motor is an easy fix – simply order a new one, pull down your vehicle’s headliner, unplug current motor, plug in new one, replace headliner.
Well, so we ordered a new motor. It came, didn’t fit right, so we sent it back. We ran out of time, went to Hawaii.
Came home, plugged in the old motor just for kicks, and it worked! But not enough to get my moonroof to completely seal. Womp womp.
So at this point, we’re on day 15 of my car not being fixed. We finally cave in and call our mechanic, and he says they don’t do moonroofs or specialty things, only motor work. They recommended we contact a body shop.
All I saw at that point were dollar signs.
But we had no choice, so we did some research on local places, and found St. Michael Auto Body. They were the closest to us, and had excellent reviews – lots of kind, great things to say about the owner. So Paul called, and just like the reviews said, the owner was really nice. He gave Paul a few options on what we could do to try and get it closed so we wouldn’t have to bring it in.
We tried those things, it helped a little, but we still couldn’t get it to seal. We call Mike back, and we get on the schedule to bring in my car for them to look at.
This was all last week. So today, on day 21 of my car not being fixed, I brought my car in for them to look at. When I checked in with Mike, he asked what my goal was with this whole situation. I told him that all I needed was for the moonroof to seal closed; I don’t need for it to work, just to be functional for me to drive in the rain. I only wanted to replace it if that was our only option. He says great, takes my keys, we part ways.
After only a couple hours, Mike calls and says he was able to get it closed! I’m super relieved, obviously, as we didn’t want to have to pay for a whole new one (talk about being between a rock and a hard place), but then he says something completely unexpected: “…and because it only took a limited amount of my time, I’m not going to bill you anything for this.”
Wait, what? I was totally floored. This man took his time, talked through options with Paul on the phone multiple times, fit us in last minute, and ultimately fixed my problem (that we’ve been dealing with for three weeks), and he didn’t even want to charge me a penny. For him, I’m sure it didn’t mean much, but the gesture was an incredibly kind one, and one we absolutely weren’t expecting. After dealing with this problem for weeks, and having it end with someone offering a solution like that, I was really moved by his generosity.
So Paul and I agreed that we would at least run to Dunn Brothers and get a giftcard for him as a way of saying thank you. Standing at the counter at Dunn Brothers, I thought how fun it would be to get a giftcard with enough on it to pay for coffee for the whole shop, so that’s what I did. It seemed the least we could do in response to his incredibly kind gesture.
I pull in to pick up my car, and as Mike hands me my keys, I hand him a thank you note with the giftcard tucked inside. I head home, relieved to finally have this issue resolved.
You may think that this is where the story ends, but oooooh nooo friends, it is not.
An hour and a half later, my phone begins to ring. It’s St Michael Auto Body. If I’m being honest, I let it go to voicemail because I knew he was calling about the card.
You guys, this man left me the sweetest voicemail.
At one point, he suggested that it was too much and that we could come back and pick it up because he felt guilty using it, as he felt he didn’t do enough work to warrant it. But if we really wanted them to have it, how much they all deeply appreciate it, and will enjoy using it.
I don’t know how to really wrap up this post today, but by saying that the generous actions of one person today made my day. What may have seemed like a small, insignificant decision to him, completely rocked my world.
If you need auto body repair work done, go to St Michael Auto Body.
Courtney Weinreis // A Borrowed Likeness 