Saturday, April 21, 2007 |
16:16 - Life comes at you pretty fast
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Boy, you stand around for half an hour or so in front of an oil change place while your car is up on the rack, and you get to do more people-and-car-watching than in six months of well-insulated routine life.
Highlights:
• A guy in an NSX hesitating as he pulls out from one of the side streets in Santana Row to try to keep his low front overhang from clipping the gutter, and the car behind him honking at his split-second delay
• A couple in a new Subaru Outback right off the lot (this was right next to a major auto mall street) with dealer plates and window stickers and everything, gassing up, while the salesman continued his spiel
• A guy coming to investigate the continuous squeal coming out of the gas pump with the OUT OF SERVICE sign taped to it, rummaging around in it for a while, and then giving up
• Asian managers speaking fluent Spanish to the Hispanic mechanics, and posting Chinese scrolls in the windows of the convenience store section right alongside the ad posters for prepaid phone cards for calling Mexico and South America
• An old guy in a Jetta tripping his panic button as he gasses up, then hopelessly fumbling in his pockets, pulling out cellphones, keys, wallets, and other miscellaneous junk before finally fishing out his keyfob and groping around on it until finally turning off the alarm
• A touristy-looking couple in a Mazda pulling in, identifying me instantly as a local, and asking me for directions to the nearest In-N-Out Burger
• The manager, having told me earlier in the day (the third oil change place today to say this) that they were all out of oil filters for my amazingly rare Audi A3 2.0T that they've apparently never seen before, arriving at 3:00 in a Neuspeeded-up Jetta with a box full of Chinese lunches for his mechanics, which they all ate while they worked on my car. The Jetta in question was apparently a customer's, because after he got out and passed out the lunches, he popped the hood and reattached the plastic engine cover which had been sitting in one of the bays the whole time.
Oh, and when I'd first arrived at the place, I asked the manager, "Before I even turn off my engine, do you have oil filters for this car?" "Oh, sure, sure," he assured me. "We do cars like this all the time." Then he tapped on his computer for like ten minutes; and then came back to me and told me that no, they actually didn't have any such filters (I am Jack's total lack of surprise), but that he'd ordered an armload of them, and they'd be there in two hours, if I could come back later. ... So I came back two hours later, and he arrived in the Neuspeed Jetta with all the lunches while I was waiting; and he said to me, "You're gonna hate me for this, but... turns out we actually had one of the filters for your car in stock. It was just miscategorized." "You owe me one of those lunches!" I yelled at him, and we had a good laugh.
For that matter I got to watch the whole process of the oil change (which I couldn't as easily do at a Jiffy Lube or the dealer) and see what was involved with draining the oil, changing the filter, replacing the skid plate, etc.
I wasted a lot of time and gas this morning driving around looking for someone—anyone—who could change my oil; but somehow I think I ultimately got my money's worth out of the day.
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