For the Record

The body shop guys kept the trailer hitch for a week, repeatedly heating, soaking, and pounding it - to no avail. Apparently, it never budged once.

So, for the low, low price of 264 dollars, I got a brand-new trailer hitch, labor included. They didn't charge me for the week's worth of work they did on the other one, and they had the hitch reattached in the hour it took Suzy and I to go to Jimmy John's for lunch. So I guess there's that.

I'm sure I don't need to point out that I would have preferred it if I could have just, you know, USED THE HITCH THAT CAME WITH THE CAR! But I couldn't. So we say "okay" and we move on, happy that it wasn't worse.

So now we have a hitch, we have a bike rack, we have bikes. We are ready for action.

At least 264 dollars worth of summertime fun. I insist.