Murphy's Lunch

My lunch hour today is a prime example of the intimate relationship that I have with Murphy's Law.

I hoped to accomplish two goals during my lunch: 1) Get my Jeep washed; 2) Get something to eat.

There just happens to be a car wash about 5 miles from my work. And, there just happens to be a Sonic beside that car wash. So, it should be simple, right?

Of course not.

I pulled into the car wash behind a long line of cars. I knew at that point that my mission was not going to be easy. After about 15 minutes, the car wash guy tried to divide the line into two lines. What did that mean for me? That all the cars behind me got to go in another line, and of course, that line was faster than my line. So several cars got a free pass right in front of me.

After finally getting to the attendant and selecting my car wash options, I walked next door to Sonic to order my lunch. I decided to visit the restroom before attempting to put in my order. Big mistake. The door wasn't locked, but it should have been. I opened the door on a frazzled mother attempting to take care of the bathroom needs of two small and crying boys.

So, I backed out of the restroom to wait. And wait. And wait. And wait. Finally, the door opened and she emerged. I proceded to head into the bathroom, but unfortunately for me, the group had discovered the lock. Right before they closed the door.

I ended up sneaking into the men's bathroom. A gigantic water puddle ran from one end of the bathroom to the door, but I did not discover that until I stepped right into it.

Did I mention that I am a germaphobe?

A stream of soap and paper towels later, I made my way out front to place my order. And the speaker system was down. The wait staff had to go around to all the cars and people the hard way. I felt really sorry for them because they all looked flustered. But, that was before they ignored me for the next 15 minutes as I stood there right in front of them.

Futher adding to my frustration, a lady from the car wash - one of the line cutters, of course - walked right up, and they took her order immediately.

It will be a long time before I return to Sonic.

When I finally made my way back to the car wash, the Wash Boy was in the final stages of perfecting my Jeep. I must say he did a really good job, and that the extremely clean state of my Jeep did brighten my mood considerably. It really looked like a whole new vehicle.

I pulled into my parking place at work with my goals accomplished with about 30 seconds to spare. And a headache.

I resisted the urge to jump up and down and shout "LOOK!!! THE JEEP IS CLEAN!!!" in the middle of the parking lot. Instead, I downed two Advil and snuck back into my office where I will spend the rest of the afternoon looking out my window to see how shiny the Jeep is and yelling at anyone who may walk too close and endanger the cleanliness doing very important work stuff.