trust the midas touch

It ended up taking five hours. I had an appointment and everything. It turned out that a two hour appointment window meant that I could show up and they would get to it when they got to it. This is also how it works without an appointment. The receptionist told me this like she knew I was about to yell at her. I vowed, consciously, to prove myself a good girl. 

I chose Midas because when I googled “cheap oil change near me,” I got an ad for a $17.76 oil change. I knew that they would tell me what they always tell me: I need the expensive oil. I always cave and then promise myself that I will find out later if they are lying to me. I think sometimes they take advantage of me and the way I spill my guts about knowing nothing about cars. I make myself a target. I cannot help it.

My strategy at an auto shop is to just say, hey I don’t know shit about shit, can you please do what you think you should do, and I’ll trust you and pay you whatever you tell me to? Not today. Today, my strategy was to keep bringing up the $17.76 coupon. I mentioned it when I made my appointment and when I showed up. After two hours, the receptionist told me that my car needed the expensive oil. I agreed enthusiastically, even though I’d promised myself that I would tell them to just fuck up my car this time because I wanted to save $30. 

More than 116,000 Americans have died of Covid-19. I heard this on NPR on the way to Midas. That number is breathtaking, gut punching, devastating. Not a single person, mechanic or customer, was wearing a mask. It’s become a statement to not wear one, that you are smarter than science. If you refuse to wear a mask and you don’t have a goddamn excellent reason, you can fuck right off. 

The mother and her two small children were not wearing masks. The boys were so patient. One looked about 5, and I don’t know how he and his mother managed to keep his small body calm and comfortable during the two hours our time overlapped in the waiting room. They played an iSpy game with letters of the alphabet. He helped rock his baby brother’s car seat. All of us watched Daniel Tiger as the signal wavered in and out on the waiting room TV. I wanted to tell them that I am sorry they got stuck waiting in the most boring place in Ohio. But I would rather peel off my skin than have a stranger trap me in a conversation like the one I wanted to trap them in. 

An older man with a Hindu Goddess tattooed on his bicep had been waiting longer than I had. As hard as I tried to eavesdrop, I could not understand what he was saying. The receptionist had a fluid conversation with him, asking him about his daughter who was graduating from college early. I thought about all of the people this woman communicates with and how well she does it. I thought about all of the times I’ve listed “effective communication” on my resume as a strength, and how I was nowhere near as good as her. 

A man came in and treated the lobby like his living room. He brought in a plastic cup with no lid, spread out in a chair, and had the audacity to use the lobby bathroom. He also brought his mail with him, walking each piece, one by one, to the garbage can next to my seat. I held my breath each time. 

A mother and daughter came in. The receptionist pretended to be upset to see them. Apparently she knows everybody in Ohio. The older woman was hard of hearing, and so her daughter had to repeat everything to her. She wasn’t repeating the words more loudly, but somehow the mother could understand only her daughter. The mother asked the receptionist if she had any kids. She responded that she has 5 and she’s raising her sister’s 3. Her sister passed away. I wonder if I should look up from my book and offer my sympathy. I do not. Neither do the mother or daughter. 

The mother’s phone keeps ringing. Her ringtone is one of those ones everybody knows but remixed with chirping birds. All three times it rang, it was her husband calling. Men are truly helpless. 

After two hours, the receptionist asked me to come look at something on my car. My car was suspended in the air and was missing all four of its tires. This is not usually part of an oil change, right? Like, they don’t have to take off the tires to get to the oil thingy? I know that much. She told me my brake pads were getting close to needing to be repaired and that it would cost $300. I told her I would keep an eye on them. This is what I tell people at work when I want them to know that I am validating their concerns but have no real plans to fix them.

At last, my car was lowered, and I was free. I live less than 10 minutes down the road from the auto shop. I love that feeling after getting an oil change: you don’t have to think about it again for months and months. And then five sharp beeps cut through NPR and my soul, and my tire warning light turned on. I flashed back to my car, naked without its tires. I knew that the light may have been a coincidence--and karma for feeling like I’d actually accomplished something. But I also knew that if I took it right back and re-emphasized how little I knew about cars that they would take a look and almost definitely not charge me. 

This time, the woman at the desk knew me, and I expected some kind of playful banter like the other customers. Instead, I got a concerned look. 

I’d finished Sister Outsider during my morning visit and brought The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy to keep me company this time. A new character was in the lobby, a hunched old man who got too close to my face to tell me how smart I was to bring a book, and that I could be finished with it by the time they were finished with my car. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that I had, in fact, finished a book in this very chair earlier. And that he hadn’t even been there that long and should probably buckle up, kid, cause you’re new around here.

When it was time for him to leave, the receptionist told him the total was $900. The hunched man said he was going to pay cash but would instead be using a card he found in the parking lot. He followed this with “I kid, I kid.” I wondered if I had dropped my card and also if I was about to witness an old man tantrum. They both laughed and he paid his $17.76. The coupon had worked for him.  

By this point, I’d figured out that Midas had a little bell that chimed when a car pulled into their parking lot. I looked up at each chime and was surprised when I saw my own car pulling into the lot. The receptionist herself was driving, and moments later, she came in and told me I was good to go. My tires had all been a little low, and she topped them off. It felt so good when she thanked me for my patience. I had proved myself a good little girl after all.