Ok, I'm THAT Woman.

Today I had another "day off". It was nice, and is probably the last one for a very long time. So instead of staying home and cleaning, I decided to go out and do some shopping/errands. One of my errands was to get the oil changed in our Explorer.

Ok, I've NEVER EVER EVER done any kind of maintenance on a vehicle. And I don't mean me physically working on the truck, I mean taking care of the maintenance.

Before I met DH, I was in college. I didn't have a vehicle. After we were living together, every vehicle was basically both of ours, and since DH was working for first, a limo maker, and second, a car dealership (both with mechanic shops there), and third, an actual mechanic shop, he always took care of the maintenance portion of our vehicles. The most I've ever done for maintaining a vehicle is to add gas, windshield washer fluid (and even that's rare for me) and a good clean up maybe once a year.

Today, however, was different. For the first time ever, DH isn't working for anything that's related to cars. He has finished school for the school year, and today was his first day at his co-op. The truck needed an oil change, and I had a day off. So, it was either up to me to do it, or another weekend chore to add to the list.

"I can do this," I thought. I had no idea what to expect, but how hard could it be? DH had said to me on the weekend that taking it to the dealership that had a drive-thru oil changing thingy would likely be fine. All I heard was drive-thru, and fine. I didn't hear the part when he told me to shop around first, or what the price should be. All I knew was that sounded easy!

So off I went this morning. I still felt lost and out of my realm when I got to the dealership. There were the bay doors to the shop, and there were people lined up in their cars, as for a car wash. Did I just line up? Or was I supposed to check in first? Or pay first?

I parked the car and went in, only to learn that I should have stayed in the truck and just got into line. Once I got in there and it was my turn, this one mechanic guy came to my window and started going on about something. Words like "seized" and "valve" and other mechanic-y jargon came tumbling out of his mouth and I just stared at him and must have looked like a deer caught in the headlights.

When he said, "OK?", I simply stated, "I have NOOOOO idea what you are talking about!"

Typical housewife, was probably his thought, as I'm sure he had a quiet conference with the billing guy about how he could easily charge me double, I'm so ignorant. He ushered me out of the truck and showed me the tire, pointing to the valve thing where you pump the tires up (something else I don't do). He then explained as I daydreamed about him actually being hot and sexy, then taking... listened intently to him saying something or other, and I was thinking, I thought I came in here for an oil change? Are they charging me extra for this?

Whatever.

Forty-seven dollars later I pulled out, happy and proud that I had taken responsibility for my vehicle and went about my shopping and errands.

Apparently I was ripped off, because I got yelled at later by DH for not shopping around and going straight there.

Oh well, it's done now, and I have a feeling DH won't be leaving that up to me again, which is just as well because I hate doing it! Vehicles should always be the man's job! Just like lawn mowing, garbage, and snow blowing/shovelling...