I took my car to get the oil changed on my lunch break. It’s only about 5,000 miles over due for one, yeah,  I’m a responsible car owner like that. So I am sitting in the little waiting room by myself when another patron walks in to join me. This guy, let’s call him Gus, has had too much coffee, or possibly crack, for breakfast and can not sit still. I’m playing solitaire on my phone to avoid eye contact and the chance of having to engage in conversation while Gus sighs exhas…..

You know what I hate? I hate when I can’t think of the right word. Normally I can’t think of it because it’s a larger word that I don’t use in my everyday vocabulary, but I know it exists because I’ve heard it used before, normally by my father. It’s not so bad when I am writing because I can Google that shit. It is bad when I am having a conversation and end up sounding like a moron. For example, I’ll say, “Gus sighed exhasturbatedly” and then whoever I am talking to will say, “What? He was masterbating?” and I’m all, “NO! You know when you sigh and you blow air out your mouth really hard and it makes your lips bounce off each other? Yeah. What’s that called?” and I then I get BLANK STARES for a good 15 seconds. Then they are all, “you mean he was annoyed?” and I’m all “yeah, that works.”

EXASPERATEDLY!!!!

Yep. That’s a real word and everything.

Where was I? Oh yeah, Gus was… annoyed and/or bored and/or on crack and/or exasperated. Come to think of it, I don’t really like that word anyway…

So Gus decides to throw the rules of waiting room etiquette right out the window. He starts to sing a tune that is only playing in his head. Then when one of the air powered machine thingamabobs starts to click at a metronome pace, Gus starts his own drum solo on the plastic chairs. By this point I am too distracted to even play my mind-numbing game of phone solitaire when the Jiffy Lube employee walks in.

“Summer? We are ready to go over your invoice with you now if you will just follow me to the register.”

THANK GOD! Not a minute too soon. I smile politely at Gus as I make my way out of the waiting room. Gus, being the complete stranger yet cracked out gentleman that he was, did a giant air drum symbol crash and gave me a wink as I left the room. I’m not sure if I should be flattered. I mean he was a pretty decent chair drummer after all and apparently his performance was, in part, for my entertainment too. I think I may have blushed a little.  Really I suppose I should have thanked him for making my lube change an interesting experience.

The world is full of peculiar yet interesting people like Gus – helping to make the drab tasks of day to day life entertaining. I guess our job is to recognize them as such and avoid being put off or irritated by them. Because after all, wouldn’t the world be a boring place without the Gus’ of the world?

Blogfully yours,

Summer

Summer Random, Story Time