My Trip To The Jiffy Lube®

I drive a Toyota Prius. It's actually a fairly advanced automobile, technologically speaking. A person doesn't need to insert a key to start the engine, just have the car's thumb-size sensor in his pocket. There's no key necessary to lock the doors either, as long as that sensor is near a car door. Today I discovered it was time to change the car's oil. A dashboard light came on and told me so. So I figured I'd go to the local Jiffy Lube.

I pulled the car up to the door of the Jiffy Lube's garage bay. I shut off the engine and then left my set of keys on the passenger's seat. Amongst the keys was the Prius's ignition sensor. A young, grease-stained, Jiffy Lube employee pushed me out of the way, jumped into the car, and grabbed the keys off the seat. He apparently was in a hurry. I noticed that his shirt said his name was Marvin. For a moment I watched as Marvin's oil marinated fingers toyed with the keys, his brain trying to figure out which of the keys was the ignition key.

"Hey pal," I finally uttered, "let's say you find the right key, where's the keyhole you put it in? Huh?"

Marvin began searching the dash for the elusive hole. Of course there wasn't one. But I let him look around for about thirty seconds. "I'll tell you what you do, swifty," I finally said, "put the keys back down on the seat and just push the big button that says POWER. If the engine doesn't start I'll give you the car's right front tire for free."

"Why didn't you just say tell me how to start the car in the first place?" Marvin grumbled at me, a bit of agitation in his voice.

"Well I would have if you hadn't pushed me out of the way as though I were your mother-in-law standing in front of a keg of Budweiser."

Finally Marvin got my car through the garage door and up on the rack. Meanwhile, I stood in the customer's waiting area acting as though I were reading a six month old Today's Bride magazine.

Jiffy Lube advertises that they take only ten minutes for an oil change. The company could make a fortune selling watches to their customers. This I say because my watch said that it took them almost 10 minutes to figure out how to open my car's hood. Either their advertising is wrong or my watch is.

Since I was going to be there longer than I expected, I decided I'd better use their bathroom facility. I asked a cigarette-puffing guy manning the desk where the toilet was. According to the name tag on his shirt, the man's name was Elden. Well, for an uncomfortable few seconds Eldon just stared at me, his slightly blood-shot eyes peering at me out of a weather-beaten, impassive face. At last he lethargically pulled the Pall Mall out from between his lips and tossed a thumb over his shoulder in the direction of a door around the corner.

"Thanks pal, your the best," I uttered in exasperation as I started for the restroom.

I stepped into the toilet facility and the first thing I noticed was the wet floor. "Hey pal," I barked out of the tiny room, "there's more water on this floor than there is behind Hoover Dam."
"Yeah?" he sang out. "Well for your information, that's not water."

"Really?" I howled as I glared fearfully at the flooded floor. "That's great. That's... just... great."

"Don't worry. It's only Marvin's coffee piss."

"Marvin's coffee piss?"

"That's right. It's piss but it's from coffee. Marvin had about five cups earlier today."

"Oh, well since I'm standing in coffee piss I don't feel so bad," I sang out sarcastically. "Can't Marvin hit the toilet?"

"I'll tell you what," Eldon called back to me, "you close the door and flip the light switch and you see if you can hit the toilet."

Well, my car was being serviced and my bladder was full. And since my shoes were already soaked, I figured I might as well do as instructed. So I threw the door closed with my right hand as I tossed the light switch with my left hand. The door clapped shut but the room's lone lightbulb refused to illuminate. Pitch darkness. After groveling around in the blackness for eight or ten seconds, I finally found the doorknob. I quickly pulled the door opened, stepped around the corner and barked to Eldon, "The light doesn't work!"

Without looking my way, he mumbled, "Wow. You're a real smart fella, aren't you?"

"Why the hell don't you put in a new light bulb!?" I huffed.

"Well usually we can use that room with the door opened," Eldon explained as he used his shoe to crush out his cigarette on the floor. "But we had a run of women customers this morning."

"Oh really? How inconvenient."

"Yeah. I'm willing to leave the door opened even with women in the place," stated Eldon, "but I'm from Alabama. Marvin is kind of bashful around women. So he closes the door."

"I think I'll just hold on until I'm home," I stated. "If you don't mind."

"Naw. The customer is always right."

Well, finally my car's oil was changed. Eldon rang up the service cost on the cash register. "That'll be $33.95," he muttered.

"Don't I get some discount because of urine damage to my shoes?" I remarked.

"Well I'll tell you, if you'd have come a half hour later, I might have been willing to give you some kind of shoe damage discount."

"Why in a half hour?"

"Well, ya see, Marvin has pretty regular bowels, and in a half hour he'd be about due to take a crap. You think your shoes are bad now, they would be a whole lot worse in a half hour, I guarantee you."

Time, Adulthood, And The Ultimate Sacrifice

When I was about twelve years old President Kennedy died. His assassination triggered philosophical questions out on the playground amongst us urchins. One question was; Are you willing to give your life so others might live? The first specific version of this question was, Would you die in place of the President of the United States? Jeff Pratt chuckled assuredly and pronounced in no uncertain terms that he'd die in place of the President anytime. All of us kids said that we were willing to take that step. Kim Gilbert said he would also be willing to die in place of the Pope. He meant it too. All of us were being completely serious.

If my memory serves me correctly, the questions became more detailed as we went along. As I recall, the next question was, What is the fewest number of people that you would be willing to sacrifice your life for? I think the first kid to speak up said he would be willing to die in place of a friend or family member. Then Lester Imboden proclaimed that he would be willing to sacrifice himself for just one important person, even if he were a stranger. Pretty darn noble, huh? Well, that did it. Everyone of us nodded that we'd do the same thing. Yeah, we were a courageous, high-minded lot, that's for sure.

A lot of time has passed since them days. But I've asked myself those same questions now and then over the years. The answers are no longer the same as they were when I was a kid. First, if my voluntary death were required to allow the President of the United States to live, well, good-bye Mr. Prsident. Nope, I wouldn't do it. Not even if he were new to The Office and he won the election by a landslide. I'm not that selfless any longer. My life means just too much to me.

If I could sacrifce my own life to stop a terrorist from blowing up a bus full of passengers, I don't think I'd do that either. I'd have to actually experience such a situation to know for sure, but my guess is that I'd choose my life to those lives on the bus. I'm just being honest here folks. I think if the body count got up into the hundreds then I'd probably have to think about it good and hard. There is a point where I'd actually be brave and noble. I'm pretty sure that I'd sacrifice my life to save a mid-sized city from annihilation. I'm pretty sure.

Yeah, when I was a kid I was a whole heck of a lot more valiant. I'll bet it's true with all the adults who were once those kids, those kids way back when. I still run in to Jeff Pratt at class reunions. He was the first kid to announce that he was willing to die in place of the President. Well of course he's grown now and I'm pretty certain he feels differently about making such a sacrifice, these 45+ years later. I mean, the last time I saw him he told me that he wasn't even registered to vote.