At the dealership

Yesterday I had to take my car in to get a yaw installed.  The technician explained to me that "yaw" comes from "yee" and "yaw," which were terms spoken to horses to get them to turn one way or the other, back when horses were a main tool of labor. The yaw for my car is a turning sensor.

We were just at the dealership a month ago, to get the car serviced and have the brakes checked.  That time there were some delays, and we ended up staying there for two hours.  Someone had thoughtfully placed a coffee carafe on an end table in the waiting room, with a tray of plastic spoons and sugar packets.  A courtesy phone was located at knee level, on another end table.  Magazines were elegantly fanned on a coffee table.  The glass doors were sparkling and smelled faintly of Windex.

Clara could not believe her good fortune.

Within five minutes of our arrival that first time, I'd had to pry open her little fists to retrieve handfuls of sugar packets, re-fan the magazines, and explain to her the virtues of taking only one plastic spoon instead of twelve.  She had approached the phone cautiously, because she could sense that it was very, very definitely off-limits.

"Clara," I'd warned, and she'd then circled it repeatedly, clasping her little hands at her chest to keep herself from reaching for it.

She'd run pell-mell through the car showroom, torn through private offices before I could grab her, made friends with all the salespeople and scored an enormous blue balloon.  She'd pressed her mouth against the glass doors to make interesting designs. I'd pulled her away to wipe them clean and given her a bagel with cream cheese for a snack.  She quickly discovered, however, that cream cheese drool makes even better designs on glass than regular drool.

This time when we went to the dealership, I brought a stroller.  We went for a nice long walk down Fairview Avenue.  The name is misleading.  It's an obnoxiously busy street with very few trees.  Most of the businesses are car dealerships or car washes with names like "Dirty Harry's."

One of the dealerships is called "Combs Car Corral."  The jingle on their TV commercial is "We will, we will, finance you.  No credit needed at Combs Car Corral," set to the hit "We Will Rock You" by Queen.  When I was buying my first car fifteen years ago, I looked at some cars at Combs.  My dad soon dissuaded me with sage advice: "Never buy a used car from a dealership that uses 'Corral' in the name."