Oil Change

We got the oil changed in our car yesterday.

This may seem like a small thing, one of those routine adult tasks that keep life moving along and cars running. And it really isn’t that big a deal. Sure, it is an inconvenience, but adulthood is full of minor inconveniences. And this one isn’t even an inconvenience, to me it is something that is really, really important.

See, when I was in college I had what was (and frankly is) the best car I ever earned. It was a silver 1986 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme. It had a 350 cubic inch Chevy big block engine and a huge 4 barrel carburetor. It ran like a pissed off cheetah. It ran so well, in fact, that in the year or so that it was mine I racked up 4 speeding tickets. I loved going fast in that car.

Unfortunately, I knew nothing about how to take care of a car. No one had told me that oil needed to be changed regularly. I was 18. I thought you just put gas in it and drove. And I kept thinking that, and driving fast, right up until I burned that beautiful engine up. I remember feeling so hopelessly stupid.

We don’t know what we don’t know. Sometimes because of that we do things that seem from the outside to be silly, reckless or even dumb. They aren’t any of those things. They are simply artifacts of ignorance.