Oh Mother

Today has been about cars and time (see what I did with the picture there?) Specifically, mother’s crashed car and the length of time I have spent on the phone to the insurance company on her behalf.
I put off phoning for as long as possible, but eventually ran out of other things to do. You can tell how much I didn’t want to make the call as those other things included such essential activities as “watching the telly” and “reading a book”.
My fears were justified when the recorded message at the start of the call announced there may be a thirty minute delay before someone could speak to me. But I was assured that my call is “important” and that the call handlers were “working as quickly as possible” to deal with my claim.
Thankfully, it was actually only twenty minutes before I spoke to someone, and I must say that it was all handled very efficiently from then on. Details were taken and I was advised the approved repairers would be in touch to arrange the collection and repair of mum’s car.
Which indeed they were, less than ten minutes later. At which point it stopped being a good day as they insisted on speaking to mum before they could speak to me. The fact I was a hundred miles away didn’t seem to sink in and I was asked a couple of times to pass the phone over to her. It seems “data protection” means I cannot be trusted to arrange a date for the car to be collected on her behalf.
A little frustrating, as it’ll be a fortnight before I see her again. Though maybe it’s not actually a bad thing that she can’t drive for a while - she might decide she doesn’t need a car after all. I should be so lucky!!