Mouth

I don’t get uncomfortable talking to service workers, that’s not exactly the best term.

People who are at work who I need to talk to.

Not for work, but for personal needs.

I will explain.

I don’t get uncomfortable talking to the people at the car repair place where I was today, or the people at the dentist office where I also was today.

And there’s nothing I can really attribute that to other than I don’t dread those interactions the way I know some folks do.

But I had what were, to me, amusing in different ways and interactions today.

I’d like to tell you about them in ways that are both roundabout and full of tangents, because this is Your Daily Lex after all.

First I had a service appointment for my Rivian this morning, and it has various software things wrong with it, along with one cosmetic thing that I would have ignored, except since I was already taking it in for the software things to get fixed, I said, hey, you should fix this too, which they agreed.

And it’s about 45 minutes away, which is better than the old one, which was in Brooklyn, and going to Brooklyn would have sucked, so people are very excited that there is one in Trenton.

It has no signage, it shares space with a busing company.

When you have an appointment there and you’re going to go, they call you ahead of time to tell you how to get in, because you have to go to the building that doesn’t have any signs that say Rivian, and then go past this door, and make sure you go in this door.

It’s a whole thing.

Because of the time that I was getting my kids on the bus, I was like, you know what, I’m going to leave now, even though that’s probably going to get me there 45 minutes early.

No, sorry, it’s going to get me there 15 minutes early at 7.45 for my 8 o’clock appointment.

So that’s when I got there, and I’m kind of walking up, trying to follow all the instructions I’ve been given once I’ve parked, and I’m, you know, unsurprisingly parking in a sea of Rivians, and by the way, don’t put your Rivian in the sea, it’s bad for it.

But so, I kind of walk up to the garage-y area, and a guy sees me, he’s like, oh, I’ll help you, you know, much closer to 8 o’clock.

I was like, no problem.

So I pop open my trunk, and I literally just sat on the back of the trunk, you know, it’s one of those, I don’t know what you call them, I’m not a car person, Casey can correct me later, but I sat on the folding out part of the trunk, because it was a lovely day, and I stared at all the Rivians, and there were Amazon delivery trucks, because many of those are Rivians, and all kinds of Rivian pickup trucks, and Rivian SUVs like mine, and of course, all the buses that had nothing to do with Rivian, that share the facility, and then at 7.59, I went back up, and the guy takes me in, he’s like, yeah, I couldn’t take you before, because, you know, we’re giving you a loaner, and the loaner’s coming from Enterprise, and they’re not open until 8.

He was very kind.

I spent two minutes talking to him, and then he called me a Lyft, and the idea is, they’re going to call you a Lyft that takes you to Enterprise, and he’s like, it’s going to pick you up over here, so just wait over here, and that’s where the car will come.

And I had just enough time as he walked away to wonder, how will I know which is the Lyft?

Like, I mean, I know that they’ll stop, and then I can get him.

It’s odd that I won’t be able to, you know, track the Lyft’s arrival, and I had no more time to think it than I got a text message from Lyft that was like, hey, Rivians ordered a Lyft on your behalf.

Tap here to track it, and in my case, it opened the Lyft app that was already on my phone, and showed me where it was.

It was cool.

It was like, without ever having to put in a coupon code, or a gift card number, or whatever, I was able to use Lyft with somebody else paying for a Lyft.

That was fun.

So I get a ride to Enterprise.

I hate all car rental places, I think for probably obvious reasons, but I had multiple thoughts.

One, it’s 15 minutes from the Rivian place, so he could have seen me at 745 if his concern was whether Enterprise was open, because it was going to take 15 minutes to get there.

So it wouldn’t have been a matter.

It wouldn’t have mattered.

Second, to be part next, I made myself laugh so much, I coughed.

According to the signage at Enterprise, it opened at 730 anyway, so this guy was wrong twice.

He could have just said, I don’t want to see you before 8.

That’s fine.

That’s fine.

That’s what I’m fine with.

So I have to babble with the guy at Enterprise, and I really actually had a hard time understanding him.

And I feel bad when somebody has an accent that I’m finding hard to parse, particularly in person.

It clearly was not a problem that this person was unaccustomed to, because I said, I’m sorry, I didn’t follow, and he repeated it again.

Like, he got this.

I couldn’t even tell you what ethnicity the accent was or what nation it was from, but it was really tough.

But I did decline all the other insurances, and now I can leave.

Great.

And I have time to come home and do some especially mouth prep before going to the dentist.

I’m at the dentist.

It’s x-ray day.

I hate when it’s x-ray day.

I like when it’s non-x-ray day.

They do their thing.

It’s pretty quick.

It’s 25 minutes, 30 minutes total, maybe less.

And when I’m going to leave, they take me up to the front desk, and I know that I don’t have to do anything.

I know that my insurance is covering this visit, and I’ve already scheduled my next appointment, and there’s nothing else.

But I’m standing there because I’m polite.

Meanwhile, the person behind the desk is in conversation with another person, not a person who is a customer, just a friend of hers, a person who doesn’t work there but happens to be there and is behind the desk chatting with her.

And she sees me but makes no effort to stop that conversation.

And this woman who is ignoring me while being aware of my presence is roughly 5,000 years old.

And eventually, she’s talking to me about her broken foot that’s in a boot.

And eventually, she says, I’m so sorry.

Let me deal with you first.

I’m like, yeah, I’m pretty sure I’m all done.

And she’s like, oh, let me check.

And I’m like, yeah, I have a pretty great mouth.

And she goes, what do you mean?

Now, why am I trying to, I don’t know, flirt with this 100-year-old woman?

I don’t know.

I just wanted to see if I could get her to laugh because I thought that would be a nice way to handle my annoyance rather than express my annoyance or be annoyed that she had made me stand there waiting.

I thought, what if I turned this into a fun interaction for me by being amusing?

She’s like, what do you mean you have a good mouth?

Well, no, I mean, I come to the dentist to feel good about myself.

They always tell me how great my teeth look.

And that’s what they told me today.

So I’m sure I have no follow-up.

And she’s like, oh, usually people tell me how horrible their mouths are and what a lousy experience this was.

It’s like, well, I’m better than all of them.

And oh, did she laugh.

So she thought I was funny.

And I didn’t yell at her for wasting my time.

It was a solid, I don’t know, 45 seconds that she wasted.

45 seconds I’ll never get back.

Luckily, I have taken additional time and dedicated it to you in this episode.

Anyway, those are my stories and tangents.

Have a wonderful rest of your Thursday.

Lex.