I've Been a Bad Bad Boy
A couple weeks ago, I had an appointment to get new tires put on my vehicle. It is an AWD and I have learned, it really chews through tires, the price I pay for being able to drive on the horrible slick river bluffs all winter long around here. From experience, I knew it would be a fairly lengthy wait and also based on past experiences, an unpleasant one. Let me explain.
The waiting room at the local dealership is a small room with 8 or so chairs arranged around two walls, a television on a faux fireplace on the third and the fourth side being open to the restrooms across the hallway. The television is forever blaring and people in the waiting room are always making lots of noise which means for me the book reader, I have a hard time concentrating. This wait started off as no exception. The television was tuned to some loud program excitedly talking about sharks who apparently ate someone who had been trying to record their night adventures. They would excitedly talk about some discovery, hype up a potentially deadly situation and then cut to commercial every five minutes. Five minutes later, you would cut back to the shark program, realize that nothing serious happened due to the previous cliffhanger and go back to discussing something for five more minutes before the next cliff hanger, commercial interruption, rinse and repeat ad nauseum.
There was only one person other than myself in the waiting room and he wasn't paying attention to the program either. He was instead placing phone call after phone call on his cellphone and then shouting gossip and curse words into it so the person on the other end could hear him over the shark and commercial programming. I wasn't getting a lot of reading accomplished but eyed the remote hungrily which was sitting inches away from the loud talking man on a corner end table.
Fortunately, ten minutes into my wait, his vehicle was apparently done and he was called back to the service desk in a room nearby to pay and collect his vehicle. I didn't even wait for the door to close before I was up and quickly grabbing the remote and returning to my seat in the other corner. On my way I found the MUTE button and clicked it putting an end to the incessant noise. I tucked the remote into a tent advertisement perched on my corner end table and began to read my book in peaceful silence.
After five minutes of bliss, it hit me that other people may eventually come in and see the working television with no sound and start looking for the remote or even worse, find a way to increase the volume by pressing some button on the thin bezel of the television itself. So I pulled the remote out from the hiding spot, turned the television completely off and tucked it back into the hiding spot. I hoped people would see the television not on and assume it just wasn't working and not spend much of an effort looking for the remote.
For an hour, I enjoyed the silence of the room and my book before the first waiting customer, after my entrance, joined me in the room. She was a generation older than me and had a book which gladdened my heart. Maybe ten minutes later a young 20 something man came in but seemed more concerned with his texting/gaming on his cellphone than the television. And so the television remained turned off and the room silent, well except for the faint Christmas carols being blasted out on the showroom floor down the hall.
Perhaps at the 1:45 mark in my wait, a woman from the office area came out, crossed the hall and bought something from the vending machines in the corner. She then asked if we wanted the television on. Both the older lady and I immediately said no and the young man added that he was fine. But the woman kept looking around pondering out loud where the remote was insisting it had been right on the corner table (where I had found it earlier) earlier that morning when she had turned on a shark program. She poked around here and there and even came within a couple feet of my chair near the other corner table where the remote was hidden in the tent advertisement but I made no move to shift my feet to allow her closer access and kept my eyes trained down at my book. Finally she muttered that someone must have taken "her" remote, looked in the garbage can and went back down the hall towards the office area.
Bullet dodged.
I got in another 45 minutes of reading before 2 hours and 20 minutes after I first turned off the television, the service desk guy informed me that my vehicle was done. The other book lady had already gone and the young man was still focused on his texting/gaming on his cellphone so I just left the remote hidden in the tent. I'm sure somebody will find it eventually and turn the television back on to shark and commercial programming at a loud volume.
You won't get coal in your Christmas stocking on my account, lol. I kinda understand why they have a TV in a waiting room, but not the loud volume. I would have been tempted to just turn it down, even though I would have wanted it off. The restaurants where we get take-out have TVs on, but usually a news or sports program with the sound off. I don't mind that.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't mind it so much if it had been a different station that didn't break for five minutes of commercials every five minutes. That gets old really fast.
DeleteAll dealership waiting rooms must be designed by the same person. The last time I was in one the scenario was the same - loud tv program no one was watching, loud person on a phone and me trying to read a book.
ReplyDeleteAdd to that back pain from sciatica and I was miserable. Also the door to the outside was not sealing properly and I was cold. Thankfully I was not trapped there as long as you were.
I wish they had a separate room for book readers, kind of like they used to have sections for smokers back in the day, at least in our state.
DeleteYou are a conniving and devious sort. I like it.
ReplyDeleteI have my moments for sure.
DeleteEd, you are a bad boy. Also, a stellar citizen.
ReplyDeleteIn places like that, I have to go outside (if possible) or find the corner farthest away from the television.
Normally, the show room floor has a wooden bench tucked into a far corner and out of earshot of the television but they rearranged it so while it was still out of earshot of the television, it was directly in line with the sun's reflection off the shiny showroom floor tiles and I couldn't read due to squinting my eyes shut in the glare and had to go to the waiting room as backup.
DeleteI find it harder to tune out other folks' conversations than the TV. Glad you managed to have silence!
ReplyDeleteI have a harder time with conversations as well. Normally I don't have an issue with the television except for the shark programming which was all about conversations about what they were after/looking for and very little to do with sharks.
Delete....or worse, when they decide to have a loud conversation on their phone! I never ceases to amaze me what folks will talk about in public.
ReplyDeleteMy MIL has the habit of putting every call on speaker phone and since she is hard of hearing, has to shout her end of the conversation. I've never understood how anyone thinks that might be socially acceptable to do.
DeleteRIGHT THERE!!!! That's IT!!!! I get tired of people carrying on private conversations on their cell phones at top volume, making us all privy to their lives. I mean, people carrying on full conversations in a grocery store. Why? What is so pressing that the phone call could not wait? In my mind, it only goes to stress how important they are. Even worse? The bluetooth thing, where someone can be standing right next to you blabbing away with no sign of a phone. But if you blink, and look at them and say, "Pardon me?" because they are talking and you didn't hear them, they look at your in disgust like you're the worst sort of moron. Used to be when people carried on full conversations with people you couldn't see, you could assume they were mentally ill. No more.
DeleteI honestly can't think of the last time I answered my cellphone in a public place with people around. Then again, I don't go out to public places with people around all that often so I may be the exception. I have got the moron look asking, "What was that?" to people talking on their invisible phones.
DeleteI hate the obsession with having TVs everywhere: restaurants, waiting rooms, etc. My Subaru dealership has a regular waiting room (with snacks, coffee and other goodies) and a quiet room away from the TV. I don't blame you at all for hiding the remote!
ReplyDeleteI wish my dealership had a quiet room! During warmer months, they do have benches outside the front of the building and I do sit there or walk around the lot looking.
DeleteBrilliant. I’ve wished to do something similar many times.
ReplyDeleteI have only attempted this one prior time but instead of hiding the remote, placed it on the armrest of my chair. It worked for awhile but someone eventually came over and grabbed it while asking if I minded, not really waiting to hear me answer.
DeleteLove it! Why most waiting rooms, wherever you are, have a TV blaring all the time is beyond me. Haven’t had mine on in over 2 years.
ReplyDeleteIt isn't just waiting rooms. I've been to many a house where there is a television on at all hours of the day, even if there isn't anyone in the room or watching it. I as a guest, must then compete for attention while visiting.
DeleteThese laces are increibly nousy with out loud TV. I find the exhoust fans very, very noisy.
ReplyDeleteThis one is separated from the actual work by another room where you go to discuss work being done and to pay your final bill, plus a room for vending machines so it was quite quiet once I turned off the television and the man gabbing on his phone left.
DeleteWell played sir, well played........ :)
ReplyDeleteNot often can that be said of me.
DeleteI am right there with you on this as there is nothing to which I object much more than a blaring TV noone is watching! You did everyone a service and I congratulate you! (You know, sooner or later, someone found the blasted remote!)
ReplyDeleteI'm sure that it will be back by the time I have to return. The sales tent will be expired here shortly and whomever goes to throw it away might be surprised when the remote falls out of it.
DeleteYou were a good good boy, imo.
ReplyDeleteI still might have to say an extra Hail Mary here to absolve myself.
DeleteHa! I might have put the remote back in plain sight, were it me, but hey -- those TVs ARE obnoxious and I don't blame you at all for turning it off. I would also much rather read in any waiting room. (Or at the airport, where it's also hard to concentrate with all the ambient sound.)
ReplyDeleteIf it had just been me, I would have returned it to plain sight but there was the other fellow who had came in late and was gaming on his phone five feet away. Nothing would implicate me faster than him seeing me remove the remote and put it back to plain sight.
DeleteNo salesmen came in to sell you a new car either I would bet! I think if I were a car salesmen I would make the waiting room a fun stop to make friends hand out business cards and sell cars! Sounds like the waiting room at the Buick dealership...I turned the volume down on the tv, they did have hot chocolate and an oil change took about 80 minutes...no one spoke to us:) Happy Christmas eve!
ReplyDeleteI do have a good friend that works there and sometimes he stops in when walking by for a quick chat or I drop into his sales office if he isn't with a customer. But that particular day was his day off. This dealership will send out several emails, post any service on your car, asking if you would trade in your vehicle because they have somebody interested in it. I always digitally trash the email.
Delete