It’s about the little animals, dammit!
Or not. Today I got my vehicle emissions checked… and I have a question.
The whole point of the emissions test is to minimize auto emissions in the air, right? Right. OK. So does it seem weird to anyone that I would have to drive 10 miles through heavy stop-and-go traffic and then wait on at the entrance for… oh… 15 minutes with the engine running and the AC blasting because the heat billowing up from the blacktop would choke a goat?
OK. Just checking.
*sigh* Patience, Amy. Enjoy the lovely morning. Open the window and get some fresh air.
*gasping for oxygen amid the emissions fumes dancing on the heat waves*
Or maybe not.
When I finally get to pull into the shade I am promptly invited to go into the little glassed-in booth to wait. Fine. I have to go to the bathroom anyway.
The air conditioning in the little booth is on full-blast. I almost get blown out the door again. It feels a bit like heading out into a blizzard… but without the snow.
And with a kind of a funky smell I never did figure out….
And no bathroom. *humph*
There’s one other guy in the booth. We carefully ignore each other.
I try to entertain myself by snapping photos of the machinery outside.
Wait… is snapping photos of machinery in a county emissions center a problem for Homeland Security? Am I going to get arrested as a potential terrorist? I glance around guiltily. The guy with the newspaper glances at me quickly and turns away.
They have sky marshals on airplanes… do they have emissions marshals watching the emissions facilities? Are emissions facilities somehow central to our national defense? I put my phone back in my pocket. Am I about to get tackled?
(Yes, when you live in or around Washington, DC, you think about these things.)
A short, unassuming man comes in and hands me a piece of paper. My car (my two-year-old Honda that hasn’t even expired its warranty) passed the test. I didn’t even see them do anything. *sigh* Well, I’m sure it was an important use of my valuable time. I’m sure it was a valuable use of my tax money paying for the equipment, as well as the two guys who moved my car from one spot to the next, took my credit card and keyed my car’s VIN number into a computer.
It’s about the emissions, right? It’s about the environment and clean air to breath.
It’s about the little animals, dammit!
There. I feel better now.
