Friday, July 18, 2014

This happened

I'm sitting in the waiting room at the Subaru dealership drinking coffee, their coffee. It's good coffee. They have one of those robot machines. I'm reading a book. My car is being serviced. I need an oil change and a new headlight. They've told me that I'll have to wait 30-40 minutes. It's been 40 minutes already. The traffic in the hall that runs past the waiting room has been all business, car salespeople and technicians and administrative assistants going where they have to go.

But now the traffic past the waiting room changes. Every few minutes someone in business casual attire holding a plastic spoon and a cup full of ice cream steps in and says to me and to the other man who is waiting for his car to be serviced, they each say in a lilting voice: "Did you get some ice cream?"

Apparently, someone is serving ice cream in the showroom nearby.

The first three times, I try to answer in a light-hearted way. I take a sip from my coffee cup, actually, their coffee cup, and say, "No thank you. I'm fighting obesity" or "No thank you. On the day my mother died, I promised myself that I would never eat ice cream again" or "No thank you, I'm not that hungry, but if you don't mind, may I have a little taste of yours?" No one gives me a taste.

After a little bit, while we are by ourselves, the other man waiting for his car looks up from his book and tells me, "I think you're making them uncomfortable."

I admit to him that he is probably right, but truly, and I don't tell him this, but I understand that really, I am probably just making him uncomfortable. After that, when it happens, out of consideration for my waiting room cohort, and it happens about four more times before my car is ready to go, I say simply to the people offering ice cream, I say, "No thank you. It looks delicious, but no thank you."

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