Words for My Enjoyment

Apparently Your Glove Compartment Is Not Yours

November 10th, 2006

Big Brother is totally taking control.

Besides all the cameras now perched secretly on our street corners and all the electronic control the overlords have (credit cards, electronic banking, Internet, etc.) I recently became aware of an even darker and more secret plan to control us without us even knowing. And would you believe that it has to do with space inside your own car?

Apparently, your glove compartment is not yours.

On a recent trip to get my car serviced, I cleaned out all the car manuals and car service advertisements and car service pamphlets and stuffed them in a garbage bag in my trunk. I replaced the glove compartment with some CDs, my iPOD and a slew of other personal effects including my Hot Wheels diecast A-Team van, signed by George Pepard. Then I locked the glove compartment because, let’s be honest, who needs access to “my glove compartment?”

Well, mere minutes into eating a stale danish from the service department’s vending machine, my loyal service advisor approached me and we had this gloriously suspicious conversation:

Service Advisor: “Gonna need your master key.”

Me: “Oh yeah?”

Service Advisor: “Yeah, the one that opens the glove box.”

Me: “Why?”

Service Advisor: “Oh, you locked your glove box and we need to open it up.”

Me: “Oh, don’t worry about it — I cleaned it out. There’s nothing in there, really.”

Then, he held up all the car manuals and advertisements that he had, obviously, retrieved from the garbage bag back in my car’s trunk with this look on his face like I just slept with his underage daughter. The Valedictorian one.

Service Advisor: “That’s just the issue at hand. We need to put these service documents back in your glove.”

Me: “I don’t need them, it’s okay.”

Service Advisor: “No, you do need them. If you don’t have them in your glove compartment then we can’t service your car. We need to have these documents in the same place at all times so we can update the dates on service chart and so you have all the necessary documents withing an arms’ reach in case of emergency. Plus, you shouldn’t be cluttering up your glove compartment, that space is for car documents only.”

Me: I use my glove compartment for holding lots of stuff.”

Service Advisor: “Yeah, don’t.”

Me: “The CD changers in there, though.”

Service Advisor: “THAT you can use. But leave everything else for us.”

And now, I’d like to pause for a moment in this midst of this insanity…

Did you ever see the movie 2010: The Year We Make Contact? The previously aforementioned moment sort of reminded me of that eerie ending of the movie where the aliens have HAL broadcast a message to the humans after they’ve been warned off Europa. The message says: “ALL THESE WORLDS ARE YOURS EXCEPT EUROPA. ATTEMPT NO LANDINGS THERE.”

As I let the Service Advisor’s words ring in my head, all I could hear was: “ALL THIS SPACE IN YOUR GLOVE COMPARTMENT IS OURS EXCEPT THE CD CHANGER. ATTEMPT NO STORAGE IN THE GLOVEBOX EXCEPT FOR INSIDE THE CD CHANGER. AND EVEN THEN, IF WE CATCH YOU PUTTING GUM WRAPPERS IN THERE YOU’LL REALLY BE SORRY.”

Obviously my imagination is quite verbose and likes to turn famous movie quotes into longer, less elegant phrases.

But still. Back to what he said:

Service Advisor: “THAT you can use. But leave everything else for us.”

I wasn’t going to stand still and let my automotive liberties be snatched away that easily. So I said:

Me: “Please let me know if I’m wrong here… But I can put whatever I want in my glove compartment since it’s my glove compartment.”

Service Advisor: “Yeah, not so much.”

And then he laughed a laugh that was supposed to sound like the kind of laugh you laugh when you want people to know you’re kidding, yet his laugh was more like a laugh that you laugh when you WANT people to THINK you’re kidding when in reality you’re laughing because you shouldn’t be laughing at all.

Bottom line - the guy was serious.

By the time I had started to flex my conversational muscles and challenge him in the glovebox scenario, another assistant service advisor flanked him on his left side — seemingly there for moral support. Of course, I knew what was happening — the “muscle” had shown up to make sure I’d bend to his will and hand over my glove compartment key so they could reclaim their space for their documents in my car.

So I handed the key over since I wanted my car serviced.

When I got back in my car, everything from the glove compartment was haphazardly thrown on the passenger side seat, and the glovebox was re-arranged neatly with service documents, emergency service placards and a ding-marker “courtesy of the Dealer.” And while it looked neat and seemed generous, I knew the darker reality of the situation.

See, apparently your glove compartment is not yours.

And there’s nothing you can do about it.

Posted under Automotive Liberties, Big Brother, Cars. |