It’s Saturday which for me means running errands and doing dumb stuff that needs to get done that I don’t typically have time to do during the week.  Today this has entailed going to the bank, doing a little shopping at Target and Borders, and getting my car serviced.

In the past it’s this last item that would have had me feeling like I was wasting my day.  Let me first take you through a typical car servicing visit as I have known them to be:  You go and you check in.  This takes no time at all.  But then you wait (sometimes for hours) in a tiny, dirty room with a barely-working television stuck on some stupid channel you can’t change, and pray for the end to come so you can leave and try to wipe the whole experience from your memory without having to resort to counseling or hypnosis.

But last year there was a revolution in this area for the Team Toyota dealership where I take my car.  Yes, I take my car to the dealership, but before any of you lecture me on this point, read the rest of my post and then tell me if you still think I’m crazy.

To begin with, a bought a new Corolla from another Toyota dealership, and because my car is young (only a little over 2 years old) and pretty much everything is covered by warranty, it serves me well to have a Toyota dealership service it - after all, they’re familiar with the car and its inner workings.  They know what my warranty is and what is covered.  Aside from that, they treat me well…  And really, an oil change is an oil change - I don’t find they charge any more than any other place out there.

Secondly, there is no tiny, dirty room.  No barely-working TV.  Nothing of the kind.  Instead, there is a giant facility complete with lounge chairs, wireless Internet and laptops (in case you didn’t bring your own), a “quiet room” for people needing to get some work done, 4 flat-panel TVs showing various channels, a cafeteria, a playroom for children, and a “Theater” where they show re-runs of Seinfeld and Friends.  I am not making this up. 

As I type this, I’m using one of the “free” laptops.  I’ve been here about an hour and a half and have been able to take care of some much-needed catch-up on email, Facebook, and even did a little work on The Watering Hole (the GAP Adventures forum that I help moderate).  By the time I get my car back, I’ll have most of the day left to finish my errands and then go home where I can kick back for the rest of the evening.  Best of all, I will not need counseling or hypnosis when I leave.

So I ask you, would you really pick a dirty little room over this?