Alone and immobilized

How many Roadside Assistance vehicles does it take to change a battery? It takes 3, now I know. Approximately 100 metres from my place of work in a suburb we shall call Armageddon my car has a major coronary and dies. Fortunately it has enough gasp to weave into a nearby driveway before the queue of major haul vehicles behind me turned me into bitumen naan bread. After a 40 minute wait my first "roadside assist" man arrives and if I use that term any more loosely it will fall off the screen, opens the bonnet and scratches his head and says "battery hot". Well at least that's all I could understand of him other than "car no good" and "bye". Another 50 minutes later and the sun is sinking into the earth like my despair and the second man arrives. He parks behind me and rings me, "where are you?" he says. I say "I'm in front of you", waiting for the pantomime audience to join in and say "nooooo he's not, yes he is". He places his traffic cones strategically and sets up his flashing light while dedicating another 5 minutes entering information into his hand held. By this time the cones have been sent flying by a procession of lawless ten tonners. Fresh out of the call centre he struggles to open the bonnet. More head scratching and eventually decides a new battery might be worth a try. He can't get the old one out and then can't get the new one in. Eventually he connects it up with much pushing and poking, and .... nothing. So he takes it out and turns it up the other way and puts it back in....still nothing. He says I need another man in a van to fix the immobilizer and takes off at a rapid speed. Almost 3 hours have passed and the suburb of hell is in darkness and I sit and wait. I pass the time delivering a tirade of abuse over the phone to a Frenchman, and so is the make of my car so therefore he must be to blame, you can't make good cheese, great wine, and cars what the hell were they thinking, Concorde anyone? Third van arrives. No language barriers this time, and man number 3 clearly knows his way around this car...and he's never worked in a call centre. He puts the key in the ignition and it starts. The car had decided to mobilize itself. So a little roadside assistance banter and then I'm home nearly four hours later. So the next time my fantastic car insurer offers me the opportunity to pay extra for all the buckets of service they offer like car hire, free taxi or pony ride whatever is cheaper etc., I will suggest I would be happy to pay extra if they just provided an experienced, trained mechanic in the language of my choice. If I went into hospital I wouldn't expect to be examined by a truck driver, then a baker and finally if I wait on a trolley long enough a medical professional, so wake up insurer either provide sufficient training for your staff or get the mechanics off the phones. Weekend whinge now complete, immobilizer mobilized.