Thoughts while getting the car serviced

I’m sitting in the gray-tiled lounge of a car dealership waiting to pick up the family car from its annual, dealer-recommended and -provided $200 oil-change--I skip the quarterly and semi-annual recommended/provided oil changes ($50 and $70, respectively).

While here, I noticed a strange coincidence: nearly every woman in the waiting room has been informed of an additional expense that has shown up during the inspection of their cars, but that no men have been told that they have additional expenses. I guess men must take better care of their cars... ;)

I often worry that people don't know when I'm joking, especially online. The answer is: sometimes.

I’ve spent an hour and a half trying to be productive, but I’ve now surfed every website that I can think of. With that context in mind, here’s a question:

If you were me, which of the following ambient sounds would you most like to eliminate?

1. the radio playing a mix of today’s hits and yesterday’s favorites sung by people who may or may not have won “American Idol”
2. the louder-than-I-would-talk-indoors voice of the young eastern European mom on her cell phone chatting about something that is either really intense or really amusing to her
3. the television tuned to “The View”
4. the tense pacing of the salesmen on the empty showroom floor.
5. the old guy who occasionally (unwittingly?) mutters something in a way that makes me think he’s talking to me but he never looks up from his papers—possibly in response to #2, but I’m not sure. (I wonder if I ever make/will start making those noises)


If you picked #3, you were right.