I hope you enjoyed the Thin Mints, Bugger!

They're tasty, but are they really worth bashing in someone's windshield to get for free? C'est la vie. Better my windshield than an innocent Girl Scout.

Someone smashed my front windshield. My rental car was one of four cars in the hotel's coveted parking area that had its windshield bashed.The officer who came when I called said it looked like the tool of choice was probably a baseball bat, though I don't suppose it matters much. The thief opened the glove compartment, but found nothing there except the operator's manual, which he threw or carried and dropped about twenty feet away into the snow. The registration and proof of insurance are stored separately, so he didn't get to those. He took the two boxes of Girl Scouts Thin Mints that I had purchased just to be nice. He then opened my trunk, where I assume he hoped to find tons of valuables. Unfortunately for him, it was totally empty. His net gain from this act of vandalism and theft was two boxes of Thin Mints. 

I called the rental company. I paid for the extra insurance so that I wouldn't have to pay any deductible. Their representative told me the simplest thing would be for me to put the repair on my credit card and to give them the receipt when I returned the car, at which time I would be reimbursed. I would have preferred that they bring me a new rental car and take care of the smashed-up one themselves, but that's apparently not how things work around here. They called a local company, who dispatched someone to fix the windshield. 

The repairman spoke even less English than I speak French, which is a considerable accomplishment, as I can sing a few songs, say the basic greetings, and ask where the bathroom is in French. I don't know what this guy does if he ever needs to use the bathroom in a public place in an English-speaking  nation. We're not THAT close to the border. Not everyone where I am speaks French. The majority of the residents here probably don't speak French.

The guy wanted me to give him my credit card so that I could pay the full price before he even touched my car, and then he wasn't going to fix it until tomorrow, anyway. With our language barrier, we could not reach a meeting of the minds. I tried calling my dad first, as French is his native language. He wasn't answering. I then called my mom, who speaks good non-native French. I told her of the problem, then gave my phone to him so she could explain that if a deposit was needed in order to obtain a part, that would be reasonable, and that she would call another company to determine what would be a reasonable cost for the part alone and deposit before I handed over my credit card, but that I was not paying the total cost until the work was done. The conversation on both ends got louder and louder. She told me when I finally got mt phone back that she had to tell him she would call the police on him if he did not give my phone back to me. I could hear her screaming about the police. It's "la police" in French, so not hard to translate even for an idiot in French, which I am.

I called the rental car company, and was not calm or polite about the crook they had sent to fix my rental car. They called someone else to fix it and told me they would pay the guy so I didn't have to use my own credit card, which is really how it should have been in the first place.

My dad's ability to insult a person  in French is far superior to my mom's. In a few hours --  once the business opens -- he will call and tell them in words they'll understand that they are jackasses with anuses where their foreheads should be.

Update: One of the other three cars that was bashed into had a trunk opener that was difficult to maneuver. He had to take off his gloves in order to get that particular trunk open, and left a clean thumb print in the process The police dusted for fingerprints all over our cars, but got a match with those particular prints. Also, they found the same prints on my car's operator's manual.  The prints matched up to a local thug. I won't get my thin mints back, but he'll at least have to go through the hassle of the court system.