the incompetence of sears...

after my flat tire disaster at walmart, i thought that the worst was over. last time i got a flat, all i had to do was go to sears, pay them a decent amount of money ($175, but that included an alignment), and they put on a new tire. voila! and only about an hour of my time, even on a very busy saturday afternoon. so i go sears on wednesday expecting the same. show up at the auto center and they're not busy, but there's not many employees either. so i wait about 5 minutes for someone to come help me. i give the guy the scrap of paper on which i have written anything i found printed on my tire and he goes to the computer and punches stuff in. tells me he has 1 left. sweet! that's all i need. so he tells me to wait while he goes to physically locate it. he leaves, comes back a few minutes later, and tells me they don't actually have it. AND that it's discontinued. he proceeds to tell me that he has nothing that will fit my car. i ask him what i'm supposed to do and our conversation goes something like this:

me: "if it's discontinued, there's got to be another tire for my car, right? i mean, not this exact one, but something that'll fit my car?"
him: "no. there's not."
me (in disbelief): "then what exactly am i supposed to do? can i replace all 4 tires with something else?"
him: "no. there aren't any tires that fit your car."
me: "ok...so what are my options?"
him: "well, you could go to pep boys. it's right across the street."
me (disgruntled): "ok. thanks."

and all i'm thinking is, what if pep boys doesn't have my discontinued tire? am i doomed to drive on a donut for the rest of my car's life??
so i go to pep boys. go through the same first part of my sears experience, until the guy suggests they special order a tire and overnight it. now, i've overnighted things before. like my car title. it's a small piece of paper, and it cost $25. how much does overnighting a tire cost??
so our conversation went like this:

me: "so i can overnight it, but then if i ever need to replace a tire again, what do i do?"
him: "special order it."
me: "well, is it always going to be available for special order, do you think?"
him: "i doubt it. this tire size was only made for 2003 mazda protege 5s."
me: "are you kidding? why would they do that?"
him: "i don't know."
me: "well, can i put 4 tires of the same size but different than what's on there now?"
him: "yeah. and the other size that would fit your car is the most common tire out there. but they're $90/tire. plus the labor."
me: "is there anything else you can think of that i can do?"
him: "you can take it to the only mazda dealership in the area, which is in greensburg."
me: "just put the 4 tires on it. can you change my headlight too, while you're at it?"
him: "sure. just sign here that we're going to charge you $482 and that we can do it. it'll take about an hour."

so i leave and wander across the parking lot to circuit city. call jp on the way, tell him the whole thing. call my parents to complain. my father flips out. anytime i do anything to my car without him or another middle-aged male around, he assumes i'm being ripped off. decides to call pep boys himself and yell at them. i go into circuit city, where there are 2 steelers i've never heard of signing autographs. i avoid that to talk to my friend brandon for awhile. my dad calls back, all calm-like.

dad: "so, after talking to the guy at pep boys, i really think the best thing to do is just to replace all 4 of the tires. you don't want to have to go through the hassle of having to special order tires every time you need to replace them, and besides, they're probably just going to stop making them all together. so i told the guys at pep boys to just go ahead and do it."

huh. good idea. i wonder why i didn't think of that? but he does tell me that they're going to help us pay for it, which is nice and totally unexpected.
so fine, wander around circuit city all pissed off that i'm about to spend $500 on tires. not a new leather jacket, not a wii for jp, not a trip to boston, but tires. who gives a shit about tires?? i think that the entire store of circuit city must've thought i was a shoplifter. i was bored after 10 min there and was wandering around looking at nothing, with my hands in my tech-vest pockets. leave circuit city after an hour and wander back to pep boys. go through the door, head towards steering wheel covers, and am waylaid by the guy who checked me in. he asks me where my wheel key is. i'm appalled, for several reasons: 1) it's been an hour, and apparently, the tires aren't even off my car yet 2) they have my goddamn phone number and never thought to call me to ask about the wheel key??
we wander out into the shop part so i can give him the key. my car is up on the thing, with all 4 tires off. ok...how'd you do that without the wheel key? but whatever, i reach into the compartment with the wheel key and come up with nothing. because it's not there. they've taken it out and obviously, used it to remove the tires. joe brilliant here is just confused. so he tells me it'll be a little while longer and i go sit on a tire display and read the dark tower. after about 15 min of this, he comes back and tells me he wants to show me something. leads me underneath my car and shows me that there is a big "metal arm" (what he calls it) that is severely bent. and rubbing against the tire/wheel. tells me they have to bend it back, otherwise it's probably going to cause this other tire to pop. great. fine, bend it. and then they tell me i have no brake lights. so fine, replace those too. grrrrrrrrrr.
the best part of all this is that i left work, sat on the bus, jp picked me up at the bus stop, and i dropped him off and immediately left for sears. that was at 6p. it's now 8:45, and i am annoyed, starving, and i haven't been home yet. AND i'm missing the season finale of 'america's next top model'. just to add insult to injury.
my car is eventually finished and i go drive through wendy's for dinner. i'm slightly comforted by my frosty and fries. but mostly disgusted by the fast food part. yuck.