Oil changes and a crisis of confidence

Saturday was oil-change day.

Well, it was actually due about 1000 miles ago, but I couldn’t bring myself to drive my car to the nearest….or any…..service facility to get the job done.

I just didn’t have the energy to face the clipboard held in the grimy hand of the technician (he is NOT a mechanic!) who wanted to sell me the “service of the month.” (Shortly after my daughter got her driver’s license as a teenager, I “allowed” her to undertake this task for me every 3000 miles. She was thrilled and I was off the hook.)

But, my daughter is now off living the life of a twenty-something, getting her own oil changed in between working three jobs, partying and surfing, and I was already 1000 miles overdue. It was on my “absolutely, positively have to do” list for the week, and the week had no more days left.

So, I took a deep breath, shored up my courage, and did the dirty deed.

What transpired over the next 30 minutes or so defines the crisis of confidence we have in our society. A woman alone in one of these places simply must practice saying the word “NO!” in the mirror before leaving the house and then lock up her wallet. Over the years, I’ve sat in the waiting rooms of these businesses and watched as, magically, every car that enters a bay at the business has the same problem that simply MUST be fixed! I’m not very mechanically inclined but I also don’t have an “S” on my forehead for “stupid.” I can't help but think men face this, too. I'm not sure.

I waited patiently for my car to be finished with its oil change, and VOILA! The technician approached me with a clipboard and a look of utter despair on his face. In years past, I panicked. WHAT WAS WRONG WITH MY CAR? As a single mother with a perpetually slim bank account balance, there was never any money for car repairs. Often there wasn’t enough money for food, so my car had to limp along as best it could.

But I’m wiser now, (notice I didn’t mention the OLDER part), and I’ve practiced the NO word enough that it just slips out easily. Sometimes I even smile when I say it. As a matter of fact, I laughed out loud when the tech told me my radiator water was brown instead of clear, and it would cost $74.99 to flush it out and replace that brown water, but wait…it would only cost $54.99 TODAY ONLY! (Laughing probably wasn’t in my own best interest since they did still have my car “un-done” there in the bay area, and who knows what they could have done to it if I hadn’t been watching every move at this point. Oh, hold on…that was the subject of a TV exposé once, wasn’t it?)

The point is that we have gotten so we don’t trust anyone, haven’t we? I don’t trust oil change technicians to tell me the truth about my car, or politicians to be straight with me about their platforms or just about anything else, or dentists to clean my teeth without finding cracked molars in the back where no one else can see them (the cracks, not the molars), or city government to disclose who they’re talking to about what in the shadows created by the sun. And our society grinds to a halt because none of us believe each other anymore.

So, what's the solution?

I can't help but think that telling the truth might be a step in the right direction.

How about oil change businesses just changing my oil like their sign says they will do and let me, as an intelligent person, take my car to a mechanic when it sounds funny or my service book tells me it's time for that radiator to be flushed? Is it possible for an elected official to tell his cronies that they have to follow the rules of engagement in obtaining contracts just like everyone else? Maybe the dental office that signed up to be part of a nationwide chain could just perform the services needed instead of finding all kinds of issues to pad their bill? How about a business that admits it has not used shareholders' money wisely, so instead of asking for a bailout, they work smarter and more efficiently? You get the picture.

All I know is that I have about 3 months to steel myself before my next oil change.