Missing Full-Service Attention

My wife and I married on a Saturday, and first thing Monday morning I had to be in Houston, Texas, to begin a job with Humble Oil and Refining Company, now known as Exxon. From clothes to car, we were two conspicuous misfits in the palatial downtown hotel where Humble lodged us.

Besides large hotels, office buildings of oil companies like Humble, Texaco and Gulf dominated the cityscape. Though I would work for Humble, I already had some familiarity with Gulf--in a primitive sort of way.

Gulf Oil Company was born when Spindletop, one of the most famous oil wells in the world, exploded into production on January 10, 1901. Before the oil bust of the 1970s, Gulf had outlets in all 48 continental states, and I occasionally "helped" Jerry Watkins serve customers at the local Gulf station during our high school and college years.

Those were the days of full-service gas stations were the norm. Every customer would not only get gas pumped, but also a clean windshield. And while the hood was up, a visual inspection might spot potential problems that needed correcting.

I recite this lengthy background to lend perspective to a recent embarrassment that would never have occurred full-service attention.

The chilly morning begged for heat, but our van refused to answer the call. The heater blew nothing but cold air. Poking under the hood, I sifted the facts. No heat in the lower radiator hose. Overflow tank looks full. Diverter valve operates. Must be a stuck thermostat. I'll fix it myself--if I can locate the right tools after our move to the new house.

But an inner voice whispered, "Call your mechanic first." So I did. Upon hearing my analysis, Steve suggested that I let him take a quick look. I did, and he flipped up the hood. Immediately noticing a broken vacuum hose, he replaced it. Unrelated, he assured me, but it would cause problems later. Full-service looks ahead.

Next, he pried open the lid of the radiator overflow tank and peered inside. Then leveling his eyes at me as if I had been caught steeling cookies, he queried, "Have you actually checked the radiator fluid?" My feet shuffled aimlessly as I tried to deflect the unspoken accusation. "Well, not exactly. But the temperature gauge works OK. And the overflow tank looks full." "Just let the engine cool and fill the radiator," he coolly admonished, knowing I had been trapped by my assumptions. "Then come back if you still don't have heat."

The radiator level was indeed dangerously low, as had been my oil level just a month before. Jerry Watkins would never have let a customer--even one driving a smoking, dripping old clunker--fall into such a predicament.

Old cars would benefit from full-service attention, I suppose. And if honesty were to prevail, so would old bodies, old houses, old marriages, old children and old relationships. But only if we want them to last beyond the next problem.

Copyright 2002 James McAlister

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