trouble-free transmission helps your oil flow

I will happily and openly admit that I don't know the first thing about cars. Sure, I know how to drive a car and I know how to put gas in a car, but that's about where my knowledge ends. This, despite working in the marketing department of Pep Boys — one of the country's leading auto parts dealers — is the cold hard (and, yes, embarrassing) truth. Anything further than turning the key in the... the.... uh... key turner thing and fueling up, I have to consult an expert. 

A few weeks ago (it may have even been a few months ago), the MAINT REQD on my car's dashboard began a constant illumination after just merely blinking when I started by car for my morning commute or when I was about to drive home after work. So, like any other car owner who has been in possession of his car for nearly two decades, I ignored it. Every day, I would see that light — those nine glowing capital letters — in my peripheral vision. Taunting me. Mocking me. Forcing my mind to begin to conjure up horror stories about burning out my engine (that's a thing, right?). I thought I should probably get ready to begin thinking about calling my regular mechanic to schedule an oil change. This is some sort of regular maintenance that needs to be done to cars, although (as we have already established) I don't have the slightest inkling as to what is does. I do know that while my car is in my mechanic's shop, he always seems to find something else that requires payment above the forty bucks that an oil change sets me back. I shiver at the notion of dropping my car off the night before the appointment and make arraignments to drive my wife's car to work, leaving her without a car all day, until my car is finished being serviced, after which my mechanic will sometimes drop my car off at my house. Sometimes, he asks me to leave the keys in the car — unlocked — and he'll come by my house in the morning and pick my car up. I am not comfortable with leaving an open invitation to have my car taken for the convenience of my mechanic. Needless to say, getting service for my car is not a smooth task. It's a rather complicated and inconvenient one, as a matter of fact. To make things even more difficult, my mechanic's shop is not open on weekends. I don't like to be inconvenienced and I really don't like to cause inconvenience for my wife. (Plus, I really don't like driving her car.) I decided to make other arrangements for paying someone forty or so dollars to turn off the MAINT REQD light on my dashboard. Oh yeah.... and get an oil change while they're at it.

A quick Google search revealed a Jiffy Lube a short drive from my house. I had been to Jiffy Lubes (or similar establishments) before. The experience as I recall, was less than enjoyable. I remember being unjustly pressured and "upsold" on unfamiliar car components and services that exponentially increased the cost of the standard advertised low base price for an oil change. I remember sitting in their dirty little waiting room and being approached by a grease-smeared guy in coveralls wielding a soot-caked piece of equipment he had removed from my car. With stern yet plaintive eyes, he explained that this "cabin diffuser" or "air condenser filter" or whatever the fuck it was, needed replacement or my car would burst into flames upon the next start-up, much the way Michael Corleone's Sicilian wife met her demise in The Godfather. With no choice but to agree to a new do-hickey, another sixty-seven-fifty was added to my bill. Minutes later, the same guy would return with possibly the same dirt-encrusted part, only this time, he was calling it by a different name. After delivering the same spiel — word for word from the corporate playbook, Chapter 6 Paragraph 3 on "How to Convince a Customer to Buy Something They Don't Need" — another double digits were tacked on to my running total. By the time I got out of there, the introductory price was now in triple figures and I was late for work. Many years and many cars later, I was ready to give Jiffy Lube another chance.

This location's posted hours showed they opened at seven o'clock on Saturday morning. After a quick cup of coffee, I was pulling in to the driveway of Jiffy Lube a little after seven. Behind the large, windowed garage doors, I saw one fellow wandering around the service area. I waited. I didn't honk my horn. I just waited. I knew he saw me. I was the only car there. He apparently reached for a switch and came towards my car, ducking his head as he exited under the rising door. I lowered my window. The young man in Jiffy Lube-logoed coveralls explained that his boss had left to pick up other workers and that he was not authorized to bring customers into the building. His speech was polite and very rehearsed. He was a mechanic, much more accustomed to applying a wrench to a bolt or tightening a valve or checking a dipstick. He seemed uncomfortable using words like "authorized" and pronounced it as though it was the first time he ever used it in a sentence. I smiled and said I would be happy to wait, asking approximately how long he expected my wait to last. He shrugged, adding that his boss only left a minute earlier. 

My wait was less than ten minutes, during which I fiddled with my phone. Soon, several more coverall-clad men joined my first contact and I was finally directed into the facility with a silent series of hand gestures denoting steering adjustments to be made so as not to dip one of my wheels into the oblong hole cut into the cement floor that would allow some unseen technician access to the underside of my car. Once given the "open palms forward" universal sign for "STOP," another guy leaned into my open driver's side window and greeted me with a memorized and approved Jiffy Lube greeting. This fellow sounded equally as awkward delivering speeches as required by his employer, but he made the most of it. I was handed a rubber-insulated iPad into which I entered my name and addresses of both the home and e-mail variety. I was asked to release the hood lock and I watched as my car's hood was raised, thus blocking my view through the windshield. I was able to observe the ensuing service though the small space between the raised hood's hinges. I could see hands inserting hoses and funnels into unseen tanks and reservoirs within the bowels of my car's engine. I could feel my car shake and shimmy as someone below me was giving the underside of my car what could only be described as an automotive rectal exam.

I sat silently behind the steering wheel, only answering the one or two questions directed to me. The first was what sort of oil I preferred. Knowing full well that the answer better not be "canola," I stupidly asked what my choices were, as though an offered selection would mean anything to my limited automotive knowledge. One of the technicians showed me a screen on the iPad with pictures of different Pennzoil products — all in bright yellow containers. (Obviously Pennzoil is the parent company of Jiffy Lube.) I pointed to the yellow container with the lowest dollar amount printed underneath it. The mechanic acknowledged my decision and disappeared. The next time someone spoke to me was when I was asked to "Start my vehicle." This request came from my first contact who spoke the word "vehicle" in the same unsure tone he used when he said "authorized" earlier in the morning. [Can't I just say "car?" No! No! Our research has determined that customers feel more at ease and will spend more money if we call their cars "vehicles." So, you will say "vehicles." Never, ever use "the C word."] 

When the hood of my car slammed shut, I knew my service had come to an end. The second mechanic (who took my identifying information), told me my total. I replied that I had a coupon and fumbled with my phone to show him the screenshot that I had taken. I held it out so he could scan the barcode on the coupon, He wasn't interested. He just noted the $13 discount and reduced the bill accordingly. Well, things certainly had changed since my last Jiffy Lube experience. No more dirty waiting room. I never left my car.... er, vehicle. No more pressured upselling. No more displaying of suspect parts needing replacement. Just a flat $44 bill and I was asked to pull out of the building and my credit card receipt would be brought out to me. 

With a little direction for my first contact, I pulled out of the building and waited. The guy thanked me for my business. I quickly asked him if he was able to turn off the MAINT REQD light on my dashboard. After all, that was the real reason I just spent $44, a reasonable cost for eliminating that little annoyance. He looked at me and said: "YouTube." "What?," I countered, trying to confirm if what I just heard was, indeed, instruction to go to YouTube on my own. He continued. "There are so many cars and years and models. Just go to YouTube and find out how to do it for your car."

I sort of chuckled politely and said "Oh, thank goodness for YouTube, huh?," but I couldn't believe what I was hearing. However, I wasn't about to argue. That would be pointless. Obviously, he was not interested in getting that light turned off. Surprisingly, he pulled out his own phone and began searching YouTube for the proper instructional video himself. Just then, another mechanic brought out my receipt and asked his colleague what he was searching for. When he was informed of my simple request to turn off that dashboard warning light, he turned to me and, as politely as a first grader asking for permission to leave the classroom, he asked if he could sit in the driver's seat of my car for a brief moment. I relinquished my car to his mechanical expertise. I could see him making pressing and turning motions and not fifteen seconds had passed when he stood up and said: "All done. Thanks for coming in." I returned to my car and saw the light was no longer glowing. Mission accomplished. 

My newly oil-changed, MAINT REQD light-dimmed car took me home. In a jiffy.

www.joshpincusiscrying.com

highway patrol

For nearly twelve years, I took public transportation — specifically the Philadelphia Regional Rail line — to work and I was admittedly spoiled rotten by the convenience. I hate to drive, so letting someone else do the driving — while I read or slept or took pictures of people blatantly ignoring the policy of keeping bags off of seats —was perfect for me. I got a discounted rate on a monthly transit pass and my car sat in front of my house six days a week, only taking it from its curbside resting place to pick up dry cleaning on most Saturday mornings. Well, my daily train commute ended when I was unceremoniously separated from my center-city employer. After a long absence, I was thrust into the nerve-wracking, white-knuckle world of driving to work.

I started a new job in August 2019. My office is located just ten miles north east of Trenton, New Jersey, in a small community called Robbinsville. It is not in close proximity to any single mode of public transportation. So, I have no choice but to leave my house at ten after seven and navigate through unpredictable traffic to arrive at work for an 8:30 start of day. In the first week of my new employ, I tried several different routes, including a stretch of the New Jersey Turnpike that collects a six dollar toll in both directions. I finally settled on a course that costs a dollar in only one direction and takes me past the 6100-seat Arm and Hammer Park, home of the Trenton Thunder, a Double-A affiliate of the New York Yankees. I also see an alleged homeless guy, displaying a handwritten plea scrawled across a piece of corrugated cardboard, wandering in and out of the traffic waiting to make a left turn on to Route 29. He wears different clothes and a different baseball cap everyday, leading me to believe that he is no more homeless than I am.

I am actually getting used to driving. I have mentally broken down my commute into sections, checking my dashboard clock and figuring what kind of time I am making based on where I am at a particular time. Sometimes, I ignore the clock and just happily listen to the radio.

Then, of course, there are those times when the traffic comes to a grinding halt. It's these times that makes me hate driving. If I am stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic for a period of time longer than a few minutes, I get anxious and antsy and frustrated. I hate inching along, closing up the gap between my car and the car just ahead, as though those few extra millimeters are accomplishing something. And, when the traffic snarl finally breaks and the pace resumes to regular speed, if I don't see a twisted hunk of sheared metal that used to be a car or a mass of bloody, mangled bodies littering the blacktop with severed limbs, I am genuinely disappointed. If traffic is stopped, there better be a goddamn good reason for it.

Damn this traffic jam!

Just this week, I was tooling south on Route 1, hitting my each of my regular milestones at the times that let me know I would be parking my car in front of my house at the usual time. Suddenly, just ahead, I could see the faint illumination of brake lights. As I approached and decelerated, the steady glow of brake lights increased as more and more cars were slowing and stopping across both lanes. I tensed up, my hands gripping the steering wheel tighter. I moved a tiny bit outside of my lane, trying to see if I could identify the cause of this slowdown, but I was too far back from the cause. So, I sat. Sat along with a crush of other folks who just wanted to get home in a reasonable amount of time. The knot of cars slowly... slowly... moved forward. After a few long minutes of crawling an inch at a time, I spotted the top of a large, electric sign parked in the far left lane. It was flashing a large, electric yellow arrow, obviously indicating that all traffic was to divert to the right traffic lane. This was quite a request. It was approximately 6 PM, the peak of the evening "rush hour" on a piece of highway that is heavily traveled by both cars and trucks. Big trucks. I could see exasperated drivers craning their necks as they jockeyed their vehicles out of the prohibited lane. I could see truck drivers leaning out of their cab windows checking their massive mirrors to see if they were clear to merge. After a few more long minutes, I finally reached the source of the obstruction.

There was a crew of a dozen or so workers, decked out in florescent vests and scrambling around like beavers all over the highway. They were installing shiny new pieces of the guard rail that divides the northbound traffic from the southbound traffic. AT 6 O'CLOCK IN THE EVENING! RUSH HOUR! Someone who works for the Department of Transportation must know that this is rush hour. Yet, it was determined that this was the optimum time to replace the guard rail. Was it decided during a road maintenance meeting that it was much better to disrupt the busiest traffic time of the day than to wait until a time when the road was relatively empty, when it wouldn't inconvenience too many people?

The next morning. I passed the part of the road —from the opposite direction —where the guard rail was replaced. It was beautiful — gleaming silver and expertly installed.*

I still hate driving.

www.joshpincusiscrying.com

* That there is what you call your "sarcasm."