A Car With a View

Tuesday I had a job interview and a stress management focus group. Wednesday I spent with friends in Lacey until late.

Thursday I awoke at 4:15 AM and showed up at the Port of Tacoma at about 6 AM to clock in and join my assigned "van" for the day and move cars from one lot to another all day. We moved about one car every fifteen minutes. There were about 7 people in the van; the driver had a sheaf of papers with assigned cars to move to a different lot, labeled with the make, color, VIN number etc.

I had about 30 seconds to get into the assigned car, make sure the vents were closed, find the keys and start it up, move the drivers side mirror to an operable position [for the first several trips I never took the time to adjust the mirror so it was actually helpful], adjust the seat forward, turn on the headlight for driving on the public roads, and turn on the hazard lights for driving on the lot, and catch up with the other drivers so I could follow them to the other lot. There was plastic covering every surface, even sometimes the steering wheel, making it slippery to handle. Every car was heavily permeated with "new car smell", and although that scent might be gratifying to the proud owner of a new car, it was nauseatingly intense for us, and we needed to lower the window to be able to breathe.

At the other lot, there was a woman using gestures to get us to park on a gravel lot. Somehow I never seemed to park right. Several times she seemed to lose patience with me. Then it was necessary to sign and date the paper, slide the drivers seat back, remove the fuse cover and disable a particular fuse, turn off the accessories, and place the keys into the glove box with the fuse cover and turn a sign about the air bag outwards from the glove box.

Every car had some anomaly that confused me, the worst being keyless ignitions with a fob to plug in somewhere, and hybrid cars, which had a release for the parking brake on the floor where I could not find it. Every time something threw me I climbed out of the car, which was a cue for one of the nearby "veterans" to come over and help me solve the problem. They were very gracious. The woman beckoning me in to the spot was never gracious. Then we rode back to the original lot in the van and began the circus again. I was so stressed that I was praying with every breath. Literally.

By lunch time I realized that for some reason I had developed double vision, but I just kept compensating and driving anyway. I was determined to continue, and felt that they would think I was inventing the vision issue as a way to get out of work.

After lunch, we started moving cars within the lot. This meant moving a car to either the truck line or rail area, and parking in a numbered, angled lot--with one important twist. It was vital to park with the drivers' side front and rear wheel right on top of the line. Two problems with that: one, I usually couldn't see the line, as the paint was faded, and two, no matter how I looked out the door, looked out the window, or stood on my head, I could not see either the line or the tires of the car, while I was driving it. I knew I was never going to master this.

At last there was a snafu with our assignments on the lot, so we returned to moving cars from one lot to another on the public roads. Which meant, no more parking on the line [yes!] and dealing with the woman's attitude [no!]

The final car I was assigned to had a problem. It would not start. Suddenly I realized it was a stick shift. Crud! Okay, no problem. I had practiced by taking a test drive of a stick shift at the Honda dealer the month before, to recover the "sense memory" of driving a stick. Now to lower the window, vital in ninety degree heat. There was no way to lower the window. I could not find the button anywhere. Thank heaven for air conditioning, because I was going to stifle.

Over-revving, I got the car to the new lot, and even parked without any judgmental intimation from the ogre, prepped the car and got out of it, and returned to the van. "You know," I said, "I looked everywhere for the button to lower the window, and never could find it." "Wasn't it on the door frame?" and other non-helpful comments, such as "I heard you over-revving that stick shift." Finally one of the guys popped out and checked out the car.

It was a window with a crank.

I told the guys they could dine out on that story as long as they wanted. I knew I wasn't coming back.