Wednesday, December 21, 2005

Sinking feeling

As expected our driveway has been sinking recently. I say expected because it is a brand new house (this was said for the infrequent/random visitors) and a brand new driveway. In truth the driveway isn't even finished yet, it has its first coat of asphalt, but the second was due until this spring. Back to my story, the driveway is sinking, this wouldn't have been an issue if we left the car on the driveway, but we are garage users.

Well I have heard differing stories about warm garages and rust, I would still rather not scrape the car in the morning if it can be avoided. With the driveway sinking the car was having more and more trouble getting into the garage. I became worried that one of two things would happen. The first is that in trying to get into the garage we would overshoot, and park in the kitchen. The second was that the high difference would be insurmountable, and the vehicle would suffer for it. Either case was not a desirable situation.

To say I have been distractedly and out of sorts this month would be an understatement. So with all the best intentions of doing something, I have in fact done nothing about it. Well until this Monday, the story really begins Sunday night. Coming home Sunday, we decided to park outside, the weather looked fine, and the bump looked extra bumpy, so we decided park outside, and call Mattamy to see if they would fill the drive. Well I fully expected myself to forget again, but Monday morning gave the harsh reminder as it was blisteringly cold, and Erin was scraping while I was cleaning up an inverted coffee cup in the kitchen (elaborate but tangential story there, maybe some other time.) I came out to relieve her of her scrapping duties, but they were all but finished, but I was used as a hand warmer, and her hands were coooooooold! So as my personal failing had caused suffering to my lovely wife, I could procrastinate no longer, I MUST DO SOMETHING!

Part of my failure was due in fact to uncertainty over what should be done. As this is a new home, in an active construction site, I wasn't sure if this was my problem or the builders. Also Mattamy has been great to us, but that was before they got our money, I was mildly expecting either a polite up yours, or at best a differential "we will get to fixed soon(tm)."

In spite of my unfounded apprehension, I was met with delightful customer service. I'm not sure who answered the phone because I have a terrible memory for names, and it definitely wasn't the person who used to answer that number, but who ever she was, she took our information down lickity split, reminded me that we would be getting a complete driveway overhaul in the spring, and promised that she would contact the construction guys to come take a look at it, and that they would do what was needed.

At this point I was really happy, and figured I had a few more days of parking on the driveway and then my garage would be restored to me. Again I was wrong. When Erin I got home that night, it was done. A nice little ramp right up to the lip of the garage, hooray!

This has taught me two things, one Mattamy is still an awesome company to have purchased a house from! Second is that I should stop being a lazy dumb ass and when something needs fixing, get on it!

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