Most EZ lubes have a medium sized waiting room with a coffee maker and tires hung up on the walls for decoration. Not this one. It is a single room with no more than nine seats crammed on two cracking walls. Everybody here is frightened..........
CONTINUED........
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Most EZ lubes have a medium sized waiting room with a coffee maker and tires hung up on the walls for decoration. Not this one. It is a single room with no more than nine seats crammed on two cracking walls. Everybody here is frightened. I am sad for no discernible reason. The two emotions seem the same currently. Being in the EZ lube isn't helping. Dido's playing on the little radio propped up in front of a laminated poster showing us what can happen to the oil filter if neglected. This didn't help either.
Beside me. A plump woman with crooked teeth and a rat face. Just old enough to not be young anymore. Her father beside her. I assume it is the father because he as well has a rat face. Though his is more pronounced alluding to the idea that Mom helped smooth out this genetic gift a bit for the spawn. Her father wears a frank expression and stubble to go wih it. He barely looks relevant in this year. More like a retrofitted throwback to a time gone by.
He doesn't believe anything anyone here had to say.
A Mexican mechanic comes in and explains to them that there is bad news. That her decade old Sentra is in trouble. That it will need a new engine and...
"Did you know this vehicle has no gas in it?"
The woman can't believe any of this.
The father shakes his head like he's trying to whip stinging bees off of it.
"No gas! How did we get up here then sir?"
"It was running on fumes."
The father laughs wildly at this.
"Fumes."
"Yes. The gas has evaporated and the fumes supplied the engine with enough juice to get it up here. You are very lucky."
The father doesn't feel very lucky. His eyes slit.
They are scurried away to the underbelly of her jacked up vehicle.
All others waiting in here become disturbed. Shifting in their seats. Making the cheap material fart underneath their asses. Rustling the pages of their two-month-old Newsweeks. The rat-face family's diagnosis surely means bad things for their cars too. I have given up on my car so the scene doesn't affect me.
The whole reason I am here is to get my oil change and plan the funeral of my vehicle. It has been condemned to death by way of production runs. It is a cruel and unusual punishment that will take months. My 2004 Gold Grand Am will age like a palsy patient over the next three months during the heat of a movie. Let alone an entire production company's line-up of movies.
I sip my coffee in commiseration. But chew on the idea that sacrifices must be made in Hollywood to get a break. That, that, is what this is all about.
Two men close-by plan their escapes with darting eyes and maladjusted thoughts making their lips and eyebrows dance. Neither wear socks. Both wear beards. One had slipped on a slick spot earlier by the coffee machine. The contents of this 1999 coffeemaker seem gray and thick. Stagnant. Not purposeful. No one used the small styrofone cups for it. One small child has one of the cups but he is putting it to better use as a chew toy. Apparently, the uninterested mother, picking at her nails, didn't seem to think that the small bitten off chunks of planet killer could ever lodge into her 4 year olds throat.
I feel diseased in here.
I start to understand why we are all negatively affected by each other today.
And everyday.
The rat-faced woman with ruined teeth comes back in. Quiet. Understanding to the event now. She pulls out her customized checkbook. And waits to pay. I don't know where her father is. He could be in the year 1949 for all I know.
Then he shows up right around the time his daughter starts grunting and mewing over the different services being tacked onto her bill and announced by the checkout girl. The daughter immediately stops her little whiny sound-making when Dad comes in. Like she knows that he will retake the position of biggest asshole in a public place for the Rat Faces. She's cheery now. With the countenance of a very happy, well fed rodent.
"We're your weirdest customers," she says.
I doubt that.
There is a natural gas smell in the lobby now.
I quietly wonder if Dad has just ripped out the gas lines on his way back in here and we are all about to die. Soon, slumped over corpses in our seats turning stagnant like that shit coffee bubbling next to me.
I stay awake. I need to see how their story ends.
Dad's eyes are lit up. His stubble glowing and thin tufts of silver hair dance on top of a misshapen forehead.
It's a disturbing scene that finishes quickly when he makes his daughter hurry on. She barely has time to grab the receipt.
"Amy, come on."
Spittle flecks everywhere. I'm concerned about his health. My stomach hurts. Queasy moments likes this are my fault. My eating habits are still horrible. All the decadent things we did in college that were acceptable, I still engage in. It must upset the balance of maturity levels in the world. Postproduction wasn't going to help. Studio work wasn't going to help. Preservative sciences didn't help.
We are all very close to death today.
I wait another hour for my quick fix oil change. The pathetic band aid I am applying to my vehicle before I run it through the meat grinder of LA stop and go traffic, PA style.
I assume I have not been murdered by the invisible waves of natural gas because I am still here. Then I realize that maybe I am dead and this is a very efficient version of hell. A seamless transition into eternity. Just waiting. For my vehicle.
Eventually the doomed car is ready. I pay up silently.
Then go home and wonder about nothing.
jason is the spawn of a retired jet airline pilot
and 1977 participant in the miss nc pageant.
she won miss. congeniality. it is all that saves him
from judging her and himself
Last update : 12-03-2008 20:14
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Lit Circus 
