COLUMN: Car Wash

The older I get, the less patience I seem to have. I hate waiting for things, and that hatred's become more and more palpable as my days tick on.

Some people like to shop online. I've never understood the appeal. I suppose it's nice to compare prices and browse things from the comfort of your couch. That part I get. But where's the fun in impulse shopping if you can't get immediate gratification? If I buy something stupid, at least I HAVE that stupid something when I walk out the store. If I buy something stupid ONLINE, all I have is a week's worth of guilt while my stupidity gets boxed up and shipped from Timbuk 2. But even when I shop in person, sometimes just the delay of having to drive back home with a trunk full of stupid-somethings is enough to make my blood boil.

And its not just shopping -- I abhor waiting for ANYTHING. I hate waiting for clothes to dry. I detest going to concerts and having to stand around while a dozen scraggly dudes tune and re-tune guitars. There is no interminable solitude worse than the time between the nurse checking you in and the doctor finally walking into the exam room. Anticipation is a young man's game.

I'm waiting right now, in fact.

As I type this, I'm sitting at a car wash while my ATH (All-Terrain Hyundai) gets a good primping. In a nearby garage bay, a team of four is hard at work wiping and polishing away life's ick from my mobile command center. If all goes well, maybe for a few days I'll be able to pretend I'm not a garbage-producing heathen who routinely drives around with the decaying remains of a dozen fast food bags from lunches of yore. I've decided today is Hyundai Appreciation Day. I'm getting the car washed and detailed, and my next stop is an oil change from a business whose signage insists that customers "STAY IN YOUR CAR!" with an exclamation point that reads more like a threatening command than a consumer benefit. I love going to STAY IN YOUR CAR!

Oil changes and car detailings are necessary (especially when your car's details are as filthy as mine,) but it doesn't make for the speediest of afternoons. Every time they hook me by saying "it'll be about twenty minutes" -- which, when translated from the native Carwashian tongue, actually means "it'll be sixty minutes if you're lucky," and that's BEFORE they actually see the current state of my car, so I'm expecting about a ninety-minute stay here in the lobby.

Except I'm not IN the lobby. I'm outside because the world has cooties. I could be enjoying this, one of the last sunny days of summer, soaking in fresh air and sunny optimism. Instead, I'm already bored, so I'm laboriously typing this column on my teeny tiny iPhone keyboard for something to do, making so many typos my editor would have an aneurysm if this was the final draft I turned in. Still, it's better than patiently sitting around and (shudder) being left to my thoughts. Besides, there's a wasp flying around and I swear I can ignore it if I just keep staring at this screen.

Honestly, there's no reason why impatience should even exist in our modern age. How dare we say "I haaaate waiting!" when most of us have a device in our pockets connecting us to all of the information in all of the world? I've been here for five minutes and I'm already at the brink of terminal boredom. But just from the apps on my phone alone, I could:

* Watch a kabillion different movies and TV shows

* Send a tweet to the Kardashian of my choice

* Watch any number of random idiots lip sync to obnoxious hip-hop songs

* Read any of the 37 books on my Kindle list I haven't gotten to yet

* Crush unlimited amounts of candy

* Order a pizza and have it delivered right here

I have an app that'll tell me where the plane flying overhead is going. I have another I can point towards any bird and it'll tell me what it is. I have an app that will identify the song playing from the car wash speakers right now, which I don't need because it's Hanson's "Mmm Bop" because I am clearly in hell. The only app I DON'T have is one that will help me talk to the pretty girl who just sat down six feet away. She's wearing a shirt that says "COFFEE!" which means she's my kind of people. Sadly, though, I think she's also someone else's kind of people, based on her family-friendly SUV being detailed. And now I want coffee.

To summarize, I think I've figured out life and the answer to everyth-- OH NO, SOME GUY IS TRYING TO TALK TO ME. BACK IN A BIT --

Whew. Okay, I'm back. Also, I'm home. Burying my head in a smartphone stopped me from talking to the pretty girl, but did nothing to stop some random guy from talking to me about his motorcycle for the better part of a half hour. I have nothing against motorcycles. They look fun. But I also know the limitations of my own hand-eye coordination, enough to know I'd be kissing pavement within minutes of climbing aboard one of those two-wheeled deathtraps.

But I smiled and hopefully nodded in all the right places as I learned all about aftermarket pipes and whatever "competition fishtail baffles" are. At one point, I took a huge risk and said, "Wow, you don't see those every day!" Frankly, I had no idea. Maybe you see those daily -- whatever "those" are. He smiled and kept babbling about baffling, so I think I lucked out. I can tell you with some degree of authority that his bike was definitely shiny -- and hey, maybe if I had competiton fishtail baffles, I'd wanna tell strangers, too.

Honestly, though, it was kind of a hoot. Life in pandemic-ville is mighty lonely, and waiting around by yourself sucks. Talking to strangers about things I barely understand turned out to be an ideal way to shorten the wait. After all, talking to strangers about things I barely understand is mostly what I do in this column every week.

Ain't life grand? (Don't make me wait for an answer.)