Oil Change Troubles....

There’s no speedco (where I usually go for an oil change when I’m on the road) for a couple hundred more miles so I google and find a Rush Truck Center about 20 miles out of my way. I’m happy to see lots of brown guys and native womyn working there.

The young brown man designated to work on my truck showers me with lots of love. He gestures to the back of my truck smiling broadly and tells me he is the son of immigrants himself: from Iran on his father’s side and Armenia on his mother’s side.

            He reassures me he is going to take good care of my truck – and he does.

            When I go to leave, I see on my bill the oil filter costs $22, which is a good deal & so I ask the cashier to add another oil filter to my bill. She brings out a short, fat filter that is NOT my filter….Oh no, not another ‘issue’.

            I seek out Rafael and we go to the truck & I see he has put the wrong filter on it – the lucky part is that I have caught it before I left; the not so lucky part is that the service desk is telling me this is the right oil filter. I argue briefly and then leave to find Rafael.

            Rafael confesses that it is not the same size as the one he took off. He does some research, comparing the number on my old filter and tells me it will take a couple days to get the right filter delivered unless I want to pay for a rush order.

            Are you fuckin serious?

            I’ve done business with Rush in different states, especially in Atlanta so I decided to call Atlanta Rush and speak with the service guy there. He looks up my record and finds the proper number for my oil filter and then, miracles of computerized inventory, he tells me there is one in stock at the Rush dealer I am at. I get the number, give it to Rafael and he finds the right filter, replaces it, and I’m on my way.

            If I was at all superstitious I’d think this trip is doomed & blame the universe instead of the challenges of life. I take off, hoping that I've had my share of challenges this trip.