The other day I brought my car into the shop to get its oil changed and some other small stuff tuned up. Now living far away from home, I miss being able to just drive my car up to the maintance shop at the nursery and saying, "Bob, my car needs some attention." And then I come back a few hours later and it's all clean and shiny and the gas tank is full and the taillight is new and we're all good to go.

But now we're in the real world, and Bob the builder isn't here. But he is definitely missed.

Anyways, I had made an appointment, so I was hoping to get my car in quickly and be able to get on with my day (not that I had too many pressing engagements or anything). Thankfully there was a starbucks next door, so I brought along a book and waited. And waited.

About two hours later, I could still see my dear car high up in the air inside the garage. The guy that was supposed to be working on it was sitting on the ground nearby eating a sandwhich. My coffee was long gone and my phone had died, so I decided to walk back over and see if there might be some completed oil changes in the near future.

Instead, I waited for about another hour, this time watching some courtroom show along with an old man who couldn't stop laughing at the blunders of the plaintiff.

Finally, I was given my keys and was free to leave. By this time the rain had started back up and so by the time I started leaving the parkinglot I had to turn on my windshield wipers. After about one and a half swipes, something long, thin and black flew off the windshield onto the parkinglot behind me. I stopped quickly and ran out to pick up the flying object, but when I got back inside my car I saw that there were still two wipers attached to the car.

I looked down at the one in my hand and turned the wipers back on to see if they still worked. Instead all I got was a loud crunching sound. I looked at the clock and at the rain and then back to my windshield. I was really hoping that I could make it home before Ryan left for his last class and I was getting hungry. But I stuck with my better judgement and pulled back around to the front of the shop.

I went inside and walked to the back of the line to wait. When I got up to the counter, I held up the projectiled windshield wiper and said, "This flew off of my car. Is that a problem?"

The poor guy looked at me for a few seconds, and the old man, still watching tv, started to laugh.

It turns out, that my friend the mechanic had been so worried about me wasting my precious time inside the lobby that he had decided to simply set the new windshield wipers on top of the old ones. Maybe four work better than two, who knows. But we ironed things out in a timely manner and I was finally on my way home.