Scheduled Maintenance
Taking My Subaru Where I Don't Belong
Yesterday, my Outback was due for its 6,000 mile scheduled maintenance, so I took it to the dealership I purchased it from. The dealership is two towns north of the town we live in, and unlike our town, skews (and has always skewed) Republican. Our town has a mask mandate; this town, Wallingford, the last town in Connecticut to recognize Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a holiday, does not.
I walked into the Service Department of Quality Subaru wearing a mask. In the Service Department of Quality Subaru, neither of their two visible employees did. They were behind standing desks; one guy helping a customer, also unmasked, and the other, a female, chatting with an unmasked co-worker about her dog. When I walked in wearing my KN95 there was a swift glance in my direction but no one acknowledged me. I stood there for a good five minutes listening to the dog conversation before saying “Am I supposed to check in or something?” I was annoyed but also confused. I wondered if maybe I’d become invisible.
“He’ll help you,” the dog-talker said, rolling a shoulder in the direction of a guy who suddenly appeared from the back room, also sans mask. He took my name and my keys, but I was pissed about no one wearing a mask and being ignored. “I fucking hate Wallingford,” I told Sam, who had come to give me a ride home, and you know what? I meant it.
In hindsight, maybe I jumped to conclusions. Maybe they were not disrespectful jerks. Maybe they were not ignoring me on purpose. Maybe they are lovely individuals who are simply not obligated by law to mask up. Maybe they weren’t thinking “figures” when I told them my last name. But suspecting the worst is where my head is, in this third February of the pandemic.
I have to pick my car up later today, and I am better prepared for the experience, which requires both steeling myself and chilling out, which is a tricky combo. But I remember when getting my car serviced was a necessary inconvenience, not a battle line, real or imagined.
My hope is humble but fervent, and applies all humans, masked and unmasked: to get our humdrum existence back in time for my 12,000 mile scheduled maintenance.