Waiting for this moment to arise

[austin_dern]

And so, with every possible piece of paperwork signed, my parents and I sat down to wait. This was just to be while the specific car my parents had bought was cleaned up, mind you, and made presentable, and no doubt that a sign was prepared to hang in the windshield saying Thank You. How long could that possibly take?

Well. It appears that Adrian Monk is for some reason working undercover at a Toyota agency in central New Jersey, possibly attempting to solve the death of leading yet fraudulent Star Fleet engineering consultant Smug J Kosinski. We waited, and waited, and waited, with the occasional interruption from someone or other with the car dealership who promised us the car was being cleaned. My mother got to reading the entirety of the Tire Replacement Policy. I talked with my mother about how long the many mylar balloons festooning the dealership might last before growing droopy, and how often they need to be replaced, and what they do with the obsolete ones. My father went to make a cup of hot chocolate at the dealership's coffee machine.

This may not seem like a big deal to you, but in his previous car purchase my father had made a little accident with that dealership's coffee machine. He misunderstood the instructions and at what point in the process he should put a foam cup under the nozzle, and as a result he got to see the dealership staff race to the coffee machine in the attempt to contain things before Open Road could be filled to waist-height in decaffeinated with sugar. This prompted a policy change at the previous dealership, so that now sales associates get you coffee instead. So you can imagine the boredom level which inspired him to deal with the coffee machine on his own.

We had a long enough wait that I actually went up to one of the sales associates and asked about the balloons. It turns out they last about two weeks, and some of the paperwork minions go around, take the droopy balloons down, empty them, re-fill them, and put them up again. (Around certain holidays they have appropriately themed balloons which take their place.) We started checking on just when the dealership closed, since it was almost certain they'd turn the car over to us before then. Wasn't it?

Trivia: In April 1909 Mack Sennett sold a script (or synopsis) to D W Griffith, filmed as The Lonely Villa, renowned for pioneering cross-cutting between scenes to heighten drama. As the script is lost, it is not known if the editing technique was suggested by Sennett, Griffith, or collaboratively. Source: Keystone: The Life and Clowns of Mack Sennett, Simon Louvish.

Currently Reading: Randomness, Deborah J Bennett.

Comments

[chefmongoose.livejournal.com]

at what point in the process he should put a foam cup under the nozzle

I generally try for step two myself, while step one is searching my pockets for the exact change that I never have, which means there usually isn't a step two.

Also.. why exactly would the empty the balloons before refilling, instead of just topping them off? Curious.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Well, the car dealerships don't charge you change for the coffee machines. I mean, if you're going to buy a couple tens of thousands of dollars worth of car they'll eat the 50 cents. This might have been what thrown my father off, or he may have been assuming the machine popped its own cups out.

I don't know how fast nitrogen diffuses into a mylar balloon, but it would at some rate, undoubtedly slower than helium diffuses out. At some point replacement would be unavoidably necessary, although probably not on a weekly or biweekly basis.

It may be that the car sales guy hasn't been closely involved in the process, too, and just figures that you have to empty the balloon before re-filling it.