03-23/Hot Dogs and Oil Changes

Six, Seven, Eight, Triple Nine, Eight, Two-One-Two.

I always like arriving into Penn Station. With the invention of the Ipod, and the combination of drinking allowed on the LIRR, I feel like John Travolta at Penn. When I ascend the staircase, and my knee pops from the steps, I wind up and I head toward whichever subway I'm going on.

Then it begins.

"Bittersweet Symphony" My feet start moving to the beat and I'm rolling along through the corridor. Confidence beaming, I pass the shops and visions of sugarplums and pizza in 5 hours dance through my head. It's no "Stayin' Alive" but by no coincidence my pants and shirt are just as tight as Tony's.

Rolling past all the people hustling and bustling, I put a swagger on and intentionally drive my feet outwardly as if I'm walking through Brooklyn with paint cans in my hand. At the moment, I'm the king of Penn.

Heading uptown on the 1, I meet Paps and we head out. Poking around to no avail of some of the Upper West Side's staples, we saddle up at a brewery/grill type place near the Beacon. Tonight - The Allman Bros. We acquire two chairs toward the end of the bar, and watch the end of the late basketball games.

Knocking wood on the bar, I declare Ohio State the champion, and then they lose. A Central American native next to me celebrates nothing by ordering another rum and coke. Obviously passed his limit, he continually falls asleep at the bar. You couldn't wake him up with a two by four over his head, but for some reason he intermittently wakes up and starts staring at Paps. I was providing the buffer between the two, but his eyes burned right through me to the other side.

Then the flood gates open. The Allman Brothers show lets out and every biker wearing their nicest jeans and leather vests enter the bar by storm. The music turns to Allman Bros. I'm guessing life still has no law against how many times in an hour you can hear "Ramblin' Man" and "Sweet Melissa."

All of a sudden I look behind me and a pool table has appeared. The native next to me is still staring. Someone is working on a motorcycle. Before long its time to go - Friday night has ended.

Tomorrow, Boston.

After another wonderful night's sleep I wake up in the morning ready to attack another day. It's driving to Boston day. Secretly I check last minute flights, and nothing short of a stagecoach is going to get me up there for under a hundred bucks without me driving. I consider having a morning cocktail to get me over the hump of buying a plane ticket, but it's no use. I head to the quick oil change/car wash/hot dog place for a quick lube.

I figure this will be at least 20 minutes, so I head to dunkin donuts for a nice coffee and minutes of people watching. After I've had my fill of the asian owners yelling the orders, quite similarly to the chinese take out style, I head back to the shop.

Hanging outside, I watch the different types of cars going through the car wash. It seems that the car wash had become so backed up that they had to stop the machine itself, running out of room to dry the cars. It's now about 30 minutes into my oil change, and I look inside. Hood still up - maybe they got to it later than I thought. Oh well. Arrival in BOS looking like 300 or so, no big deal.

An hour into the service I decide to go into the lounge. Perusing the different air fresheners, I briefly consider buying a registration wallet. I head over to the restroom, and I find a flatscreen TV over the urinal. Wonderful, if I would have known this, I could have easily ran up that hour in style.

An hour and a half later, and the hotdog stand now oddly on the corner closer to the car wash, I started to get nervous. Approaching two hours, and the hot dog cart now rolling back and forth past the window where I was sitting, I was definitely nervous. The hot dog man started to stare at me, and would look away quickly when my eyes met his. At one point, I think he put a dog in a bun and started to dance with it.

No time for that now, I decided to walk into the shop and look at what was going on with my car.
As I approached the opened hood, I wasn't prepared for what I was about to see. The cover to my engine was off, and a Spanish speaking fella had a towel over the inside similar to the way a sheet is thrown over a dead body. Not willing to learn a foreign language in 2 minutes to converse with the gentleman, I left him with a hearty, "Huh."

Checking in with the friendly mrs. on the inside, I said I've been here for two hours and wondered if there was a problem. She asked one of the attendants. I was unable to see his face or hear what he said, but she responded to him with a surprised, "Oh.."

"There was a problem with the oil filter, but they are fixing it right now. It should be just a few more minutes," she said reassuringly, as if she never had that exchange with the mechanic two seconds ago.

Sure enough it was done two minutes later, and we rolled out of there. Boston ETA was now 445 without traffic, but I started having premonitions of me sitting on the side of the 95 eating combos and waiting for a tow truck. Then multiplying that to an awkward ride in the cab of the tow truck with the driver and his dog, stinky. Then ending the thought with me having drinks in a bar with said tow truck driver asking me if I had a place to stay that evening.

Back to my chair in the basement, and to the drawing board with how I was going to attack the rest of the weekend.

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