A few days ago I had
to take my mother's car to be serviced. Now for most people this
isn't such a big deal. But from someone who has some social anxiety
(or maybe just shy) it can be a little more difficult. At least in my
mind.
As far as service
centres go this particular Toyota service centre is pretty agreeable.
It has a large customer lounge with plenty of seats and tables
available to ignore all the other people getting their car serviced.
Well, service centres aren't known to be sociable places in the first
place. Plus there's free coffee, the gesture is a nice one even
though the coffee might not be. If you expect Starbucks you will be
greatly disappointed.
For some reason I get
reminded of visiting the clinic whenever I have to get the car
serviced. First you have to book an appointment. When you get to the
service centre you have to hand over your service book to
receptionist, then wait on a bench until the service adviser calls
you. On this particular occasion there were just 3 people waiting to
get their car serviced since it was early in the day.
When the service
adviser is done reviewing the service book he will then call out the
number plate of your vehicle. Now, since I was bringing in my
mother's car I didn't immediately get up from my seat. It was only
when I saw that the people around me weren't responding that I
realized he was calling me and I finally got up, still somewhat
unsure. I had a quick look outside to make sure that I wasn't making
a mistake.
You take another seat
at the service adviser's desk and then he starts to tell you all the
things that are going to happen to the car. As he listed everything I
just nodded my head and said “OK” every time and boy was it a
long list.
Since this wasn't my
car I was only half-listening as he went through the list; he could
have said “and then we're going to send your car to the junk yard
to be crushed” and I would still have said “OK.” It's not like
there was much to say in the first place, “Well Mr. Faiz we will be
changing the engine oil” and I would ask him “That sounds nice.
Is it synthetic or mineral?”
Since the car is
registered under my mother he needed my name for the form. And after
giving my name he asked “So Ms. Blank is your husband?” For the
record he made the mistake first;
of course, I was going to say that she was my mother but for some
reason my mind thought I was playing a word association game.
I
told him that “Ms. Blank is my wife”
and while he was in mid-sentence apologizing for his mistake I had to
interrupt him “err no..actually she's my mother.”
Sigh..why can't life be easy? At least I managed to get to the
customer lounge without incident and proceeded to spend the next 2
hours on my phone launching Angry Birds at evil pigs and ignoring
people. Just the way I like it.
On
a totally separate note I think I'm getting older, I think one of the
signs is when you've missed the point of listening to music. On the
way back I was listening to the radio and Coldplay's “The
Scientist” came on and instead of enjoying the song it reminded me
of the music video and I started analysing it. This is what I came up
with:
- poor guy, he probably has a concussion
- the truck driver fled the scene of an accident, which is like really illegal
- he managed to walk a REALLY long way from the scene of the accident
- that mattress didn't really look too bad considering where it had been left
- Gosh, I wish I could go back in time
In
short I over think things and I'm awkward in public. Welcome to my
life...
Here's a link to check out:
