Thursday, April 10, 2008

MECHANICAL DIFFICULTIES

You drive up to Jiffy Lube. Luck is with you! There are no other cars in the shop! The instant you throw your car into Park, a grease-decorated technician opens your door. The moment you step from your car, the other idle mechanics set down their Monster energy drinks and rise from their folding chairs to survey their one and only customer.

You feel like a celebrity.

They walk you to the door leading to the dazzling waiting area furnished with the finest in Naugahyde furniture and featuring a machine that dispenses a palm-full of stale Mike and Ikes for no more than a single quarter! For your stimulation and entertainment, the waiting room is equipped with an eighteen-inch color television tuned to the infomercial channel. You are there just in time to catch a 12-minute spot advertising a DVD set of The Best of The Carol Burnett Show, the longest running single-host comedy show in TV history!—episodes that are included in the set selected by Carol herself!

You feel especially important sitting alone in the lobby, legs crossed, hot red heels on display beneath your highly professional slacks, returning business phone calls—obviously too busy to peruse their Popular Mechanic back issues or the graciously left-behind November 2006 issue of Family Circle piled on the green tinted glass-topped side table with peeling gold legs.

When your car is through with it’s spa treatments, the technician in charge of your vehicle enters the lobby you lounge in.

“Ma’am?”


Well, there it all went. All the goodness. The glamour. The ego. The importance. Gone. He ma’amed you.

You snatch your keys from said technician and mumble a pleasantry. You turn to walk out the door to your family-appropriate sedan. When you reach the plate glass door, you glimpse your reflection. Then you see why the eighteen-year-old technician ma’amed you. There are wrinkles. There are bags. You are dressed in the clothes of a fuddy-duddy. Your good posture deteriorates. Your shoulders slump.

You walk across the parking lot. The once again-idle mechanics watch your progress. As they’d eye a celebrity. Then you reach your car where yet another technician is waiting beside your car, holding the door open. Have a nice day, he tells you as you side into the driver's seat.

And then he winks.

Maybe you don't look as old as you think.

Or maybe he has a tic.

1 comment:

Andrea said...

Okay, the question is this...do you really want a greasy auto tech checking you out? I love trying to feel important when dressed in work attire, but lets try to raise the bar a bit on those we would like checking us out..okay? :)