Journal of a Sabbatical

June 22, 1999

we take pride in your car

June 22, 1999

Today's Starting Pitcher: Pat Rapp

Reading: Before the Dawn

Adult competency continues to elude me.

When I called the Honda Barn a week ago to make an appointment for them to look at why the blower for the air conditioning stopped blowing and why the engine cooling fan stays on for 10 minutes after I shut the engine off, they told me "we're booking appointments a week in advance now". Usually they say: "when do you want to come in?" So I took the first time I could get, which would be today. It didn't occur to me that I needed to book an Enterprise rent-a-car a week in advance too. So when I called Enterprise yesterday they were out of cars and I was way down on the waiting list. Grrr. I get to spend the day at the Honda Barn waiting for the Auntmobile.

I felt like I was up at the crack of dawn. I sleep pretty late nowadays so a 7:30 appointment at the Honda Barn is like the middle of the night to me. Armed with Before the Dawn and Eugene Onegin for a choice of GWoL and a notebook in case I wanted to write my own GWoL, I dropped off the key and the registration at the service desk. Besides the cooling problems, I had booked an oil change and a state inspection (mine's due in June). They're missing a wire on the emissions machine so they can't do the state inspection. Grrr.

I'm deep in Before the Dawn in the waiting room when Art, the husband of one of my walking buddies, comes in. I offer him a newspaper or a Great Work of Literature. He turns down both 'cause his car is just in for a quick fix for a recall notice about the floor mats. There's one other person in the waiting room, a woman in her 70's. She's reading the newspaper. Art wanders off. Suddenly a family of 4, a woman and three small children appear in front of me - between me and my coffee (which I bought across the street at Sunrise Bagels). She picks up a stack of video tapes and asks the kids what they want to watch. She never says "excuse me" or "do you mind?" or "am I in your way?" I reach around her and grab my coffee. The older woman says to me under her breath "It's time for us to get out of here." The mother closes the door behind us. We find space to sit in the showroom.

It's hot by the showroom window - the sun is beating down on me but at least I have good light to read by. Art's car is ready. The older woman's car is ready. The service manager comes upstairs to tell me they need to replace the blower motor for $229 and they can't find anything wrong with the engine fan - I'll have to come back when I can leave it for the day. Grrr.

By 10:30 or so, the sun is really hot but my car is ready - without the state inspection sticker 'cause they never did get the wire they needed. They've washed my car. I should be grateful but I feel embarrassed. It was pretty dirty - all that Plum Island dust. Looks like they vacuumed the interior too. There's a plastic mat on the floor that says "We take pride in your car." I feel like there's an implied "even if you don't" at the end of that.

I try the Midas place down the street but they don't do state inspections. They send me to someplace called Tony's that's supposedly 5 doors down on the right. I drive for 10 minutes and see nothing called Tony's or offering state inspections. Finally I turn around and go all the way back to Andover to the Sunoco station, which I know does inspections. I assure them that yes I have been driving for 20 minutes. I'm in and out with a shiny new inspection sticker in 10 minutes.

Still feeling overwhelmed by all the chores I seem to be leaving undone, I sit down with my notebook in Starbucks and start making a list. Ned comes in and sits down next to me and tells me June must be worry month. As I'm talking with him about his novel, I keep writing things on the list as they pop into my head. I tell him about the window and how I can't seem to fix it myself.

Tom comes in and sits next to Ned. Tom says something about Ned being a rose between two thorns. Ned says he's our psychic love child.

Dan and Geri come in and invite us to join them. We say we'll be right over but we get deep into conversation and the next thing I know Geri is telling us we three are snobs. That's Geri's favorite insult. I thank them profusely for the postcard of Montsegur with the vivid description of the Albigensian heretics being burnt alive. Tom and Ned are disappointed they got mundane postcards with nothing about burning heretics.

Dan and Geri leave as we warn them to be on the lookout for flaming heretics. George arrives wearing shades that make him look like a hit man. His postcard from Dan and Geri had no flaming heretics either. Hussein was in and out before we got a chance to ask him if his postcard mentioned any flaming heretics.

Ned shows me and George the latest issue of Mode magazine. Why, you might ask, is a guy reading a fashion magazine for large size women? One look at the model in the little black dress and I want the dress and the model. George reacts to the exact same model in the black dress and laughs kind of embarrassedly that we both have the same taste in women. Ned gives me the magazine to take home.

What is it with everything taking a week? I called the glass place about the window and the soonest they can send someone to look at it and give me an estimate is next Tuesday. And this is the place that advertises 24-hour emergency service. Not that it's an emergency, but I would like to be able to open the window in here while I'm working.

The way things are going, I'm going to have to book someone a year in advance to do anything at all that might come up.

In further news of adult competency or lack thereof, I finally bought a new antenna for the tv. One of those $50 power jobbies. Assembled according to package directions and installed, it does nothing. The manual says tune to the station you want to watch then turn the power knob until the green light comes on. The green light never comes on. The reception is so much worse, the tv is useless. While I'm at it, I decide to install the AM/FM antenna I bought two years ago for the radio. It does nothing. The Red Sox still have an annoying static buzz that's even worse than the bullpen. I knock the cordless screwdriver/drill box over and drill bits and screwdriver bits go flying everywhere. Wilbur thinks they're cat toys and bats them around on the kitchen floor. I try to round them up but I'm missing the small size allen bits. Grrr.

Oh, and I bought a new weedwhacker to replace the one I broke on the bittersweet vines. I whacked the lawn until it got dark. It actually looks like a lawn now. I still can't sit out there because it's still steeply sloped and my chair would topple over, but at least my neighbors can't criticize it (much).