as told to (your name here)

Dur

I totally left out the part yesterday that had me thinking about phobias and specifically misophobia. Quick background for the foreigner(s) about owning and operating a car in the States: First, obviously, a driver's license - a meaningless slip of laminated paper most often used as identification for buying alcoholic drinks. Second, your vehicle must be registered and inspected yearly. Registration is basically the yearly payment of license plates while inspection is your standard safety equipment check and, depending on the part of the country, emissions testing. Virtually every inspector (at least in these parts) is an easily bribable gas station attendant, and you didn't hear that from me. We may not actually be concerned about the environment, but it's the thought that counts. Finally, proof of minimum liability insurance is legally required, but if you get in an accident you will undoubtedly get hit by someone without insurance. There should be some sort of statistical equation that governs that, but the reality is that you're the only one on the road with insurance.

So Thursday, on my way to the hospital to see the new baby, I decide to go ahead and get my car inspected since it expired in January. I pull into the service station and am told by Kazim, the attendant, that he needs another 15 minutes with the car ahead of me, so I wait. The guy finishes up with the previous car, which wasn't an inspection but a tire rotation (yes, it took him 15 minutes to rotate the tires...don't ask) so he comes to get my keys. While he waits for his buddy to tighten the last of the lug nuts on the beater ahead of me, Kazim puts my keys in his mouth. Not all the way in his mouth, mind you, but enough that my eyes do that thing where they bug out of the sockets and my skin literally crawls. Perhaps he senses my discomfort (or hears my whimpering cries) so he takes my keyring out of his mouth. As the other attendant working hops into the other car to pull it out of the stall, Kazim scratches himself with my keys. Granted, he was scratching at his temple, but whatever it was that made him itch is now most assuredly all over my keys. At this point I'm on the ground, fetal, swallowing my tongue.

The rest of the inspection was uneventful, with the unavoidable exception of itchy Kazim getting in and out of my car. Upon returning home, no lie, I boiled my keys for 10 solid minutes.

posted by tinyhands @ 11:59 PM