I am spending my
birthday this year getting an oil change. I do not need a TV in the
waiting room at the Chrysler
dealership while I am waiting for my car to be serviced. I would
prefer silence with all of us just sitting here looking at each other
every now and then, imagining what the other person's life is like.
For example, a woman is sitting across from me who looks like a young
Woody Allen
and I'm just thinking to myself, “What are the chances on my
birthday of seeing a woman who looks like Woody Allen?” Just
when I was having doubts about getting an oil change and tire
rotation on my birthday, this unexpected gift comes to me.
I also do not need
the psycho reality TV shows yelling and screaming in the background.
I can sit and read a book or write a few paragraphs on my steno pad
while I wait. Same thing for the airport. I don't need a TV or laptop
or iPad to babysit for me while my flight is delayed. I can use the
time to think, to ponder the meaning of life, and be thankful for the
moments when I must wait and not be the one in control. I am a
twentieth-century man who has been dragged into the twenty-first
century kicking and screaming, or at least with my hands folded
across my chest shaking my head “no.” I watch our collective
attention span reduced to milliseconds and wonder where all of this
is going.
I look up and find
another gift directly in front of me: a tall, husky man who looks to
be in his early fifties with fingers the size of Polish sausages
trying to text on a tiny cell phone. This poor man with a
nineteenth-century, industrial-age
manufacturing body has been thrust into a twenty-first century smart
phone world, hunting and pecking with fat fingers on a little phone.
I'm seeing this on my birthday and I'm wondering what I did to get to
watch this real-life reality show in the waiting room of a Chrysler
dealership?
I've been here now
for an hour. I've sneezed three times and received a rousing round of
“God bless yous” coming from every direction. But the first
problem of the day has surfaced: My left leg is asleep and tingling
all of the way down my foot. I am in no shape to be called on by the
service adviser to get up and follow him because my car is finished.
I've noticed that at this dealership, the service adviser pokes his
head in the door, calls the customer's name, and the customer pops up
and follows the service adviser either to the service counter to
authorize more work or to the payment counter to pay for the work and
get the car keys. But with my leg asleep and tingling, I would be
unable to get up right now. Five minutes later. Okay, the
feeling has returned to my foot and I am ready to rise
when he calls my name, a phrase that reminds me of a Christian
worship song I really like.
This is what I'm
doing on my birthday at 9:45 a.m. So far, so good, even for an oil
change.