I do my best writing inside the Empire Toyota of Huntington Service Center waiting room. I am very diligent about maintenance and oil changes, so much so that a mechanic in Brooklyn once told me “this is the most well-preserved Camry I have ever worked on.” Within six months of living on Long Island, however, that superlative belongs to some other car.
“You got a rodent living in there.” the Huntington mechanic said. “Look.”
The hood was open on my silver 2017 Camry. I bought it used with 10,000 miles on it. My previous car was a 2006 Jetta (manual; thank you for your patience, Dad). When I began my search for the car, I typed “Jetta used near me” into Google. Google immediately sent me ads for Cadillacs. Excuse me. You know the other things I’ve been Googling, Google! No one who bought a Cadillac also recently searched “Megan Man X2 Boss Order?”
The mechanic had walked me through the garage, past several open hoods of healthier cars, to show me my car, hovering slightly off the gray epoxy floor, held up by a bright yellow two-post lift. It felt like I had been asked to identify a body in the morgue. The tires were removed and he pointed at the visible rings of rust.
Over the annoying anti-rhythm of impact wrenches whirring, he yelled: “that’s where the brakes meet the tires. Bad!”
The car had been shaking at stop lights both when I braked and when I began moving again. I had ignored it until now, hoping everything would be magically fixed at this garage in under an hour without my acknowledging the problem. No dice. I was going to be there most of the day. Thankfully, I don’t mind sitting in a room while NY1 plays in the background and I’m free to treat the time I’m required to wait like I’m in adult detention. Between waiting for a car to be serviced and waiting in that big room to potentially get called for jury duty, it’s tough to pick a better spot where I can simply think. I guess I could go to the library, but who has the time?
As a bonus, there is a Starbucks touchscreen coffee maker near the bathrooms of the Empire Toyota of Huntington Service Center. I think about this machine from the second I make my car’s service appointment. When I’m at home selecting a time to go in, I’m trying to sync it with a normal (for me) coffee break. When I’m driving to the service center, I’m thinking about that double cappuccino I’m going to get. When the Toyota rep whose job is to sit me down in a tiny office and calmly deliver the news that I’m about to get gouged fixing those tires, I’m thinking about the coffee. When I’m approving $850 worth of repairs with my signature, I’m wondering whether there will be more than one choice of bean on that day’s screen, whether I should add a Sugar In The Raw packet this time around.
And when I finally sit down to drink that coffee, free of any responsibility for 2–5 hours, I can get to work writing the next great novel or TV pilot. Or a shitload of texts and tweets.
