In my last post about the dreaded moth, I told you I was going to ask Benjy to dispose of the corpse. I was going to do it after school yesterday, and I'm pretty sure he was going to oblige.
But yesterday morning I woke up to a deflated tire. Flat as a pancake. So Lars pumped it up with his super-duper bike pump and told me to drive it -- gingerly -- to the garage.
I did not give a second thought to the half-inch of dust on the dashboard, the leaves and pine needles on the floor, the crud (read: food detritus) all over the place that could feed a small impoverished village for a week. Those guys at the garage have seen it before.
So I limped on over to the service station and they extracted the nail from my tire, gave me a couple of light bulbs, an overdue oil change, and the December inspection I was probably going to forget about until the second week in January.
I indulged in a little Starbucks love while I waited, as the garage is only a block away from our local Sbux, and this is the season of egg-nog lattes (I sure hope Lars isn't reading this). And when I picked the car up, the guy said in heavily accented English:
"Next time you gonna get a new axle. I don't wan' you to have more damage, but for today I know you gotta pick up your son at twelve. And, we gonna give you a detail and you think the car is bran' new. It's only $300 but we gonna give it to you for less, say $275. It's gonna smell great an' you think you got a new car."
"Oh, yes," I replied. "Sure." Thinking, There is no way in hell I'm paying $275 to get the dust and the pine needles and the crud out of my car. I'll make Lars do it for nothing.
So I forked over a hundred and fifty bucks for all the work and drove home. Just before I pulled into my driveway I glanced at my dashboard and it hit me: THE MOTH WAS GONE.
And now I am embarrassed. Because those guys at the gas station must think I am some sort of lunatic, or at least very, very dirty. Both of which are probably a little bit true.
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