This week I had to get my emissions test run on the mighty Cube before I could renew my license plates.
What a scam. The whole license plate renewal thing is such a scam that lately has started to smell, to me anyway, like it's time to go dump some tea in Boston Harbor.
But now's not the time for that soapbox.
With emissions, since I don't work a traditional schedule, it's never really been an issue. I go in, I sit for ten minutes maybe and watch the TV in the waiting area, and I'm out. Bing, bang, boom. No fuss no muss.
But lately I've been working a bit later in the day and Monday (when I went) was a sort of national holiday. (Schools were off, there was no mail, just enough stuff was closed to be an annoyance to the rest of us who were just trying to move through our days.) When I got to the emissions place I was already a tad annoyed because 1) It was raining SUPER HARD and I do not enjoy driving in a hard rain and 2) I was hungry because I don't eat lunch these days until 2 and it was 2 but I decided to push lunch until I got done with emissions. It never takes more than ten minutes, so no biggie. Right?
Would I be blogging if this ended with "it was no biggie?"
I got to the place and the guy at the counter took my paperwork and my keys and told me that I had three people ahead of me. This seemed odd, but okay, still no biggie. I mean, given how fast they do these tests, I figured 20 minutes tops.
So I sat down, and read a PEOPLE magazine. It was a winner because there was an interview with Rick Springfield. NICE!
Would I be blogging if this ended with me reading an interview with Rick Springfield?
After reading the magazine cover to cover I looked around and realized that no one in the room had moved. I'd been there now 20 minutes and NO ONE HAD MOVED. Oh, and the TV was NOT on.
But next to me was a father/daughter pair. The daughter looked like she was bout 15...and had a mouth on her like a salty 12 year old. I know this because the two of them argued, loudly, and about pretty much every stupid thing on earth.
I mean, my kids and I get loud when we're discussing politics, religion, football, you know, the important stuff. But these two...
Well they were arguing about bowling in Georgia.
What I gathered from their noisiness was the following:
1) The girl did not like her mother, her mother never made time for her, and the girl was not about to call her mother for anything because, and I quote, "I SHOULD NOT HAVE TO MAKE AN APPOINTMENT TO SEE MY OWN MOTHER."
2) The girl needed.wanted/must HAVE a mani/pedi before this mystical trip to the bowling alley in Georgia.
3) The girl was NOT, under any circumstances, going to bowl in Gerogia. Unless one of her siblings or her father slipped her some adult beverages while doing so. (Father said he would not, but suggested she ask her sister.)
4) Father said she needed to go shoe shopping and get some shoes for whatever it was they were going to be doing in Georgia. (Other than bowling.) Girl said she had tried on EVERY SHOE that sparkled and the only ones that sparkled in all the land were SANDALS and she was NOT NOT NOT going to wear SANDALS. (And this was after she demanded the pedicure.)
5) Daughter asked for a doctor's appointment several times. Father told her to talk to her mother. Daughter refused. See note #1 for her reason. This was like their break in every new topic they'd come back to the doctor's appointment.
6) Daughter wanted spam and mac and cheese for dinner. Father asked if they had any in the house. Daughter said no. Father said she should ask mother for it. See #1.
But after a while, even these two fell silent, worn out from arguing and waiting.
I'd been there 40 minutes.
My phone, the "new" one I got when Hubby upgraded his, died. This is significant because I've had this phone now for a week and either I'm the dumbest human alive or this phone hates me. It's a 5S, which means I now have Siri, but that hag won't talk to me...unless I do not summon her. Hubby says it's because I hold the button down TOO LONG.
There was NEVER a TOO LONG thing for my 4. Because there was no Siri to summon.
Oh, and this new phone will sometimes have me randomly typing texts in foreign languages. I don't know how. But suddenly everything I'm texting is misspelled, and I realize the 5S thinks I'm typing in French....badly.
And this phone does NOT hold a charge at all. So it died while I was waiting. which mean, no TV, no phone, no book, and I've read the one magazine.
I've been there 50 minutes.
This gentleman moved very, very slowly. I mean, he had to have been at least 87 years old, (It's nice to see able bodied elders getting out there and enjoying life...) bowlegged, overweight, and oh yeah, his pants were making that long, sad, slow sag down his flat old man butt to his non existent hips. Next stop...the floor. Only the bow in his legs seemed to be keeping us all from the world's most unpleasant strip tease.
His whole job was to pick up the paperwork on each car, find the car, drive it into the garage, run the emissions test, then drive the car out and park it next to the building, walk in, call the person's name and turn over the keys.
There were four people ahead of me when I got there. After waiting an hour, there were still three cars ahead of me. Including the bickering father/daughter team.
At the hour ten mark I got up. I couldn't sit there any longer. I couldn't walk outside because it was still pouring, so I wandered the very small "lobby" of the shop. I read everything they had there. What would you like to know about all weather tires?
Having watched "The Oldest Man" closely I knew, finally, he was headed for the Mighty Cube.
Sort of.
I guess it's my fault. I have a car that's not all the common. It sort of sticks out in a crowd. It's easy to spot. Which is why it took "The Oldest Man", and I'm not kidding here, FOUR MINUTES to locate my car in a row of twelve vehicles. He walked all the way to the wrong end of the line, looking at each and every vehicle, and then walked all the way to the end, PASSING MY CAR, before he bounced back and found the Cube.
He got into the Cube.
What he did next is a bit of a mystery, but bear with me.
Fifteen minutes after that he hobbled into the shop, looked at my paperwork, and seemed befuddled. Prior to this he'd been calling out the first name of the person on the paperwork. Apparently, my last name confused him...he stared at the paperwork. I knew it was my car and at this point I was sweating, my skin was burning (which happens when I'm feeling hot and stressed and quite possibly menopausal, but most definitely premenstrual.) and all I wanted to do was BE OUT OF THERE.
"That's my car," says I.
He looks at me as if I had just started speaking Swahili. "Bradley? Thomas? Sarah?"
"Yes, yes. My car. My cube."
Still clearly wondering if he was doing the right thing "The Oldest Man" handed me the keys and my pass paperwork and I fled in to the rain.Then it got weird.
Since my car accident in 2012 I've been very particular about how my mirrors and seat in my car are set. I don't like it when other people move either one, although I'm used to Hubby moving my seat because I sit UNDER the steering wheel and he does not. But even he doesn't mess with my mirrors.
"The Oldest Man" however, felt the need to adjust everything in my car. Seat, mirrors, and....
AND MY MINI AARON RODGERS KEY CHAIN HANGING FROM MY REAR VIEW MIRROR.
(I knew he'd messed with it because it kept rattling against the rear view mirror whereas when I put in in the car, I made sure it wouldn't rattle.)
I adjusted my seat and my other mirrors all the while cursing out "The Oldest Man" for messing with my stuff. And a moment from the movie "Moulin Rouge" played over and over in my head.
So I get home and I'm a a furious lather over the fact that I was convinced the guy had attempted to steal my mini Rodgers. That might seem way off base, but let's review:
1) I'd been trapped in a waiting room for over an hour trying to do something that should have taken fifteen minutes.
2) I was starving.
3) Old guy had messed with my mirrors and my seat when all he had to do was pull my car into a garage and pull it out. I do that every day with family members' cars and I don't touch any of their stuff.
4) Mini Aaron rattled all the way home, which, as my Sunday School kids will tell you, constant tapping or clicking or rattling sounds annoy me.
5) I was hot and itchy from the stress of all of the above and when my skin feels like that all I want to do is scream.
So I storm into the house, fully loaded for bear and Hubby happens to be home. "How was emissions?" he asks innocently.
That's when the flood gates open and I pour forth at least two minutes worth of rage and very blue language. I end the tirade with "And I think the old dude tried to steal Mini Rodgers because he kept rattling all the way home."
Hubby, ever a patient man, and yes, sadly used to these outbursts of mine (I do not deal well with having to wait long periods of time in case you haven't picked up on that.) waited until I stopped yelling and he said, "I think Mini Rodgers was rattling because of me. The last time I drove your car I lowered your rear view mirror. You probably just adjusted it without raising it. That's why he was rattling."By now I'm breathing oxygen. My skin has almost stopped burning. And I realize that yes, I just lost my mind all because of my emissions test. Total first world problem.
"You owe that old guy an apology." Hubby says with a grin.
"Sorry old guy!" I say to the air. "Sorry I thought you were going to steal mini Rodgers. But NOT sorry I was mad because you messed with everything else in my car."
So the point of the story is that in two years when I have to do this all again, I'm not going to go on President's Day.
Yes, that is my ONLY take away from the story!
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