Daytime TV and...

I took my car to the Jeep store to get an oil change yesterday, I was informed I need to get the 4 wheel drive system serviced and there was a minor recall too. I told them to take care of it all...this left me with a lot of time on my hands.

I sat down in the customer lounge with a cup of free coffee, The VIEW was on the huge TV, had to be at least a 65 incher. The sound was down, I was reading, I looked up from time to time and saw women yelling at each other, went back to my book, looked up, now they were laughing...I have no idea about what or why.

I wandered around in the show room, then out on the lot...it was lunch time. I strolled across the street to a sandwich shop. Nice little place owned by an Asian lady and her husband. She handles the money, he makes the sandwiches. I ordered the daily special, chips, large drink and the special sandwich,, bologna and cheese. I haven't had bologna in years. I ordered it on sourdough with everything, lettuce, tomato, peppers, red onion, deli mustard, mayo with sharp cheddar. It was at least 5 inches thick. I sat outside , it took me 45 minutes to eat the damn thing, it was huge.

Full, I needed a walk. The Jeep store is in the Thousand Oaks Auto Mall. It's big, 17 car stores, every thing from Fiat to Rolls Royce. I wander on the Mercedes Benz lot...Cakes needs an new car, I know what she likes. Here it is.

Nice isn't it? I looked at the sticker, she's not getting it. Why? It's a long, long way from need to desire.

Just for grins, I walked down to the Rolls Royce-Bentley dealer, O'Gara Coach Westlake. No asphalt lot here, the cars are parked on manicured grass around a pond 1 salesman on duty in the showroom, 9 cars on display inside, 6 Bentley's, 3 Rolls. I'm adding up the sticker prices in my head as I look at the cars, divide by 9, average price, $250,000. over 2 million in inventory in the show room, there are 22 cars displayed out side, 5 and a half million parked in the sun including a Rolls Royce Dawn convertible with the top down The leather smell wafts through the showroom. I'm getting dizzy from it. The salesman calls the upholstery "hides". I have on khakis, a Boston Bruins t shirt and flip flops, he makes no assumptions about me. He asks what I'm interested in, I tell him my wife needs a car. He asks what she's driving now, I tell him a BMW 550, he smiles a says, a very good car. He tells me about Bentley's lease program, I can get Cakes a Bentley GT (2 door hardtop) for 10k down, $1,886 a month for 36 months and get this, 2500 miles a year. I smiled, shook his hand, took his card and scurried back to the real world. I didn't bother to look at O'Gara's selection of Lamborghini automobiles.

A little sidebar is in order: I know a corporate car guy in Florida, his family has a Rolls store, number one in North America. One salesman, the guy makes over 500k a year. To put things in perspective, He only sold 22 cars last year. World wide, Rolls builds and sells just over 4,000 cars a year, less than 25% in North America. The majority are sold in the Middle East.

I wander past the Porsche store, Land Rover, BMW, Lexus and Ford stores. Finally, I'm back at Jeep. I check in with my service guy, about an hour to go. Back to the waiting room, grab a bottle of water, set my phone to their free wifi. I check the news, read my email and look up, a stunning blonde woman, not a kid, is on the TV and like Warren Zevon's "Werewolves of London" her hair is perfect. At minimum, a 500 hundred dollar Beverley Hills cut, color and style.. Her make up is top flight too. This blonde is in a padded cell, she's wearing a straight jacket, she's being restrained by a large man, obviously a psych ward attendant. A large, powerful nurse has a box in her hand, she opens it and inside is a huge, horse sized hypodermic needle containing an evil looking amber fluid.

A commercial comes on, I go take a pee. The rest room has an automatic light switch, as I'm standing there peeing, the light goes out. The switch is across the room. Fun.
I felt my way out out of the restroom, the TV is still on, Something has happened in the padded cell, the blonde's hair is mussed up and she's very upset...who wouldn't be?

My service guy Chris sticks his head in the waiting room, asks me if I'd like a complementary wash. I take it. When I finish with Chris, a woman is throwing a Molotov Cocktail on the TV...the show ends with an office on fire and a guy handcuffed to a piece of furniture all while a woman is laughing hysterically. The credits come up, It was General Hospital.

I wonder what my grandmother would think of one of her "favorite" shows today? Apparently GH has been on the air for 55 years. I don't think I've seen it since I had the Asian Flu in the 70's and I was too sick to find the remote.