These Pretzels Are Makin' Me Thirsty!!

Alternate title.... Shamus is gettin' upset!!


Ive been sitting at a car dealership for the past few hours. I will likely be here a few hours more. My drive into work today revealed that my heating and AC unit was not functioning. Clearly not an item essential to the vehicles ability to function, nor my ability to ride in it.
Nevertheless, here I sit about to hand these people roughly five hundred dollars. This is not a fun way to spend money. I can think of many other ways I would prefer to spend five hundred dollars.
As I sat here I realized this:
Car dealership........doctors office. Not much difference.
Both places you go with a complaint. Often times there is no life or death concerned.
Both places charge you essentially whatever they say is fair.
Both places are difficult to schedule with and are no fun to spend the day in.
Both places have cheesy waiting rooms with outdated furniture and boring reading material.
Both places take all major credit cards.
Both places have a TV tuned in to a show nobody cares about.
In both places, it is not uncommon to leave feeling worse than you did when you walked in.
Both places seldom are punctual.

This mechanic has told me that I need to give him five hundred dollars to make the inside of my car warm. He has gone out of his way to inform me that the part he is replacing is worth about eighty five dollars. The rest of my bill is labor costs. He practically took pride in relaying this news to me.