The Four Hour Car Wash

I usually workout at the gym alone. It's not really my preference. While I would love to have company, it turns out that there are few people who actually enjoy full participation in my routine. Sarah used to go with me sometimes, back when the word "piggy" brought to mind images of actual pigs. (If that last sentence made no sense to you, it's because you do not read her blog, and you should.) Sarah was my most faithful workout partner. Historically other people have proffessed to really wanting to go with me, but they wind up falling into one of three categories:

1. They openly accuses me of being a "Nazi" and will only go with me after securing promises that they will not be asked to do hard things.


2. They go once, but then admit that they hated it, and politely decline any future invitations.


3. They go once and hate it, but don't have the guts to admit that they don't want to ever go again, so they profess to "really wishing" that they could..."if only I had the time."

This being the case I was pretty enthused when my friend M.E. told me that she was dropping her car off for a two-hour cleaning Friday morning, and was going to go running at the gym across the street from the car wash while she was waiting. I hate running and I avoid it at all costs, but she asked me if I would like to join her at the tailend of her run and she'd workout with me for a little while. So I did, and it was great, and then she left me there to finish while she went to go get her car. An hour later I got home and I found a text message from her saying that she was still at the car wash because they had broken the seat on her car and were attempting to fix it. I offered to come pick her up.

When I got to the car wash I found her talking to Ruben, the manager, while two other men were crouched around the driver's side door of the car with a toolbox, allegedly fixing the seat. Ruben was really not helping, he placed a few phone calls, bustled back and forth from the office to the car a few times, and kept saying things like "just a few more minutes," "we'll get this fixed,""I have a friend who can fix this...," and "I will need to call another guy to find out what to do." M.E. was understandably losing patience, and finally asked that Ruben allow her to take the car to a dealership nearby to have the seat fixed. There was more "well, my friend can come fix this in just two more hours..." Patience ran out, and M.E. demanded that he have his workers bolt the seat back down, (which had by that point been entirely removed) and for them to do it RIGHT NOW. Ruben reluctantly had his people replace the seat, and after a total of four hours M.E.'s car was at last returned.

However, the seat was stuck in the front part of the tracks. I was truthfully somewhat astonished that M.E. was even able to wedge her legs in their and still have enough mobility to drive at all. I followed her to the dealership and took a picture of it before she got out:

As it turns out the motor on the seat had just worn out and the car wash was not at all to blame for the fiasco...or not that aspect of the fiasco anyway. When we returned later that afternoon to pick up the car the dealership gave her a coupon for 50% off of her next car wash...at the same car wash we'd been to that morning. She offered me the coupon, I declined. Who has four hours to spend getting their car washed?