Today is "get the paper ready for Prairie Conference" day. Or at least I hope it is.

Yesterday afternoon I did something I had been putting off - mainly because of the time involved - taking my car in for oil/filter change plus the system flush it was due for. Because I live alone, and because I tend to be reticent about asking friends to drive me back from the dealership (and out there to get my car when it's done), and because their shuttle service is almost more bother than it's worth (at least, if you're having something done that should take less than half a day), I always go out there and wait.

Two thoughts:

First, I think Sartre must have come up with his idea for "No Exit" (which, if I may be all elitist here, I read in the original French as "Huis Clos" in high school) from sitting in a car repair place's waiting room. (And there weren't even many other people there...for much of the time, I was alone).

Second, as I'm gearing up for the trip out there, I always load up a bag with stuff to do. (Because the television in the room is generally set to a stock-ticker program, or to some afternoon talk show). I grabbed my grading for the week (which I got all done), plus a couple of the skeins of wool for the Color-Bar blanket and my crochet hook (and yup, got a bunch of those done as well). My loading up for a process like that always makes me think back to the early days of Sesame Street and this sketch:



(You have to watch it all the way through to get it. It's the one where Ernie is going to do the laundry, and he knows he's going to be in the laundry room for a while, so he puts a coloring book and crayons in the basket, and his basketball, and his rubber duckie (so he won't be lonely) and on, and on....and in the end forgets the laundry because there's so much other stuff. It's funny how a little thing I saw last probably more than 30 years ago still pops into my head)

It took close to 3 hours for them to do anything. I was getting pretty twitchy by the end even though I really had nowhere in particular I had to be (my only plans for the evening were to do laundry.) I don't like being tied to another person's schedule, especially where there's no ETA and no updates. (At least on the train? You can kind of guess how much longer you will be from the town you're at now, and you can follow the progress).