Peak Oil

My worst fear.

I want to use this time to get something off my chest that has been troubling my soul for countless years. I have a grave fear of getting oil changes. When it approaches that time to get my car's oil fluids swapped out, I think about it all day long. On the way home I make up my mind to go, but will chicken out and pass the oil change shop, driving on to a Tim Horton's where I stuff my guilty face with delicious Timbits.

Why do you ask? Well for one thing the guys working there really intimidate me. They are usually gruff looking customers covered filthy oil from head to toe. They look at me with disdain, almost like they can smell my fear. There is an uncomfortable 15 minute period where you have to sit in your car while they work, sometimes glancing up at you and saying something to their grease covered buddy. I normally try to ignore these brutes and bury myself in a fantasy novella or graphic novel, but it is easier said then done.

Another thing that makes me nervous is pulling my car over directly over the oil pit when they wave you into the shop. While I slowly pull forward they direct me either left or right so I can evenly steer over the oil pit. I consider myself a good driver, and this is a very simple task, but the implications of failure are so vast that I start to panic. What if I steer right instead of left and my car falls into the oil pit? The local news would cover the story and soon pictures and videos would be all over the Internet. I would be known as the "oil change guy" and get invited to go on the Jimmy Kimmel show and try to explain on national TV how I managed to get my car into an oil pit. In my mind it's like it already happened.

Maybe I'm just overreacting and my neuroses is showing its true colors again. I've been seeing a therapist about this problem, and I have joined a support group for other people with "Oil Change Anxiety", or OCA. So far it's only me and this other guy, who I suspect is faking just for the free coffee. If you have this same problem, let me know and we can help each other. You are not alone.

The word around the water cooler is that Josh "Livestock" Boruff is having a baby. Who is the father you ask? Well I did some snooping around and I've narrowed it down to three possible fathers, all contributors to this site. Tune in next week to my Daily Dirt when I will spill the beans about the Livestock mystery baby, and the implications it has for the future of civilization as we know it.

– Reid "Frolixo" Paskiewicz