The Standstill at Phoenix

By the grace of God through the help of Tim, we made it safely to Phoenix. We were thrilled to see my aunt Rose Marie and be able to spend some time with her. She has a lovely pool that made cooling off quite delightful! Everyone enjoyed the downtime to play and have fun!

In the meantime, we had already connected with an RV service repair company near my aunt's that would work on the ol' tin can. Because let me just tell you, we were NOT even going to attempt to finish this road trip with a slide that wouldn't work. That thing makes all the difference between sanity with 6 people in a cramped space and well... glorious hectic hair-pulling chaos. lol 😜

There are 2 hurdles to be jumped through:

1) SERVICE COMPANY SCHEDULE... They were expecting us the next morning, Monday. So despite all the grunts and sighs, we (okay - I) insisted on parading every single one of us in there at 8am! 😲 Yes, it was an obvious and outright attempt to encourage them to take pity on us. And despite all the previous companies we had talked to in between Barstow, CA and Phoenix, AZ, who were all booked out for months, Orangewood RV in Phoenix came through with shining colors saying they could fit us in on Wednesday morning!!!!!!! YAHOOO! 😃

2) PART... We did arrive with bad slide motor in hand to the RV service company and apparently that made them think we knew what we were doing. lol We were just trying to make the needed repair as obvious and easy for them as possible. But no, he scheduled the appointment for Wednesday morning and then sent US over to the parts counter to order the slide motor. Are you kidding me? I mean, this isn't just an inconsequential piece like a cabinet handle or shower hair trap 😉. But okay, we'll hope and pray the parts lady knows her stuff more than we do. So we ALL parade over to the other side of the store and meet Marg (real names are kept confidential - or unknown), raspy voice and all. And as it turns out, she DOES know what she's doing. Forgive me for making an incorrect assumption 30 seconds prior. Marg makes a few phone calls and looks a few things up on her computer while I try to keep the minions from tearing apart the store.

Slide motor in question! Not more than 7-8" in length.

"Hmmmm........." says Marg {BAD sign #1}

"It looks like everyone has them on back order {and I proceed to melt to the floor like the Wicked Witch}." {BAD obvious sign #2}

And as I'm trying NOT to get ahead of myself or take over for my husband, I start to ask.... 'how long are they backordered for?' But before I could get that all out...

Marg comments {somewhat under her breath}, "Let's try old faithful, just for the heck of it....

I mean, she's kidding, right? For a random RV part!?! I thought those kind of things only came out of some underground secret facility or China!?! But me, the average Joe {or Josephine} can just casually order one from Amazon?????? I've heard it ALL now! 😝  

Thus, Marg proceeds to pull up Amazon on her computer and wouldn't you know it, there lies the real part and even a generic of it too! Of course we'd rather go with the real part, I mean if we were at home, and had time to try out the generic, that might be a different story, but for now, the real part direct from the manufacturer it is.

But oh wait, it's not PRIME {amazon speak} and thus the delivery of said part is a little uncertain - NOT something that we need to mess around with right now - uncertainty that is. And so back to the generic part.... $100 less and it's PRIME! Yahoo! We'll take TWO - no seriously - TWO, can't hurt to have a back up in this situation.

No sense in Marg ordering it for us and then turning around and charging us for it. Thus I jumped on my phone {not literally} and began to place my order.

{side note: about that time, I receive a text from a dear friend that says

something about praying for us this morning. I read quickly and

returned my attention to the order at hand.}

I added the TWO slide motors to my cart and proceeded to 'check out.' To my utter shock and amazement, it gave me the option to UPGRADE to...

SAME DAY SHIPPING

not for $19.99 or $39.00 or $59.00 but for 

This small town girl thinks she must have missed some fine print somewhere which actually says the "FREE" part means giving up my first born or grocery budget for the next year but I couldn't find any such language. Did I fail to mention this all while walking out to said tin can - oh ya, this or that child insists on accompanying me - to obtain my credit card number. So no one get ran over in the parking lot, read fine print and it's 95* with 75% humidity = sweat factory, unlock tin can door, get credit card, relock tin can door, head back across parking lot making sure no one becomes road kill and somewhere along the way look for said 'fine print' and then hesitantly click "SUBMIT!"

HOLD BREATH..... I'm sure an alarm is going off somewhere stating I just attempted some high level security clearance Amazon purchase I was not authorized to partake in, but nope, nodda, nothing. Wait for my confirmation email and there it is, shipping terms listing a guaranteed delivery by 9pm TONIGHT!!!!!!!! WOW! I mean WOW, you guys, I'm just in shock. lol 

I share the good news, I mean we already thought one day shipping was a God-send (even for extra $) but this, THIS is way more than we expected. And so, we headed back to my aunt's in the tin can {AC full blast} and anxiously awaited this so-called 'same day delivery.' I'm sure the UPS truck will get run off the road or the part will accidentally get flown to Bulgaria instead, but whatever, we'll see if Amazon actually comes through like they said they would. 😵