Just a few days ago I got the opportunity to cash in on the years of dues I've been paying to AAA. The battery on my car died during 5 o'clock traffic in Iowa City. I called on my cell phone and it seemed to take quite a while to get through to the gentleman on the other side where I was. I was referencing landmarks that anyone remotely familiar with Iowa City would know while he was hung up on figuring out what street I was on and what the cross streets were. Once he was able to "find" my location, he called the Iowa City police department so a car could come and help direct traffic (which I was already doing while on the phone with AAA). Initially I was told it could be an hour before a tow truck came, but that since I was in traffic that I was a priority. While I was still on the phone with AAA, a squad car pulled up and within about 5 minutes of hanging up with AAA the tow truck arrived.
My time sitting in traffic could have been cut shorter if the AAA operator would have called the tow truck and told him the directions I was telling him rather than being bent on finding street names and cross streets for his computer report. Who said technology made life simpler?
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