Surf Queens

I sit in the customer waiting area of the Koeppel Volkswagen on Northern Boulevard in Queens.  There is a large screen HD TV which I had the moment to mute before any other customers waded in.  Had I not done that, we would all be subject to the vicissitudes of the morning talk show purgatory that is the-people-who-replaced-Regis-and-Kathy-Lee. The customer waiting area is a contemplative place.  A place of respite where the gently scratchy sounds of classic rock radio playing on the mechanic's beat box compete with the rumble of the Pepsi machine.  I wonder if I'll ever not have dandruff.  I wonder if I'll ever learn to fly fish.  I go to the bathroom.  I wonder at my impatience with my own pee.  I want to pee faster sometimes.  I wonder at that.  I wonder if, when I go to the hair cutter lady today, she'll be disgusted by my dandruff.  I wonder what sort of haircut a man approaching forty years old really ought to have.  What's appropriate? I wonder how the oversized Wine Spectator magazine made it onto the formica-topped round table in the middle of the room.  How does it fit in with the Regis & Kathy Lee replacements, the AM New York news dailies, the VW sales material and the Hershey bars in the vending machine? And the other people here, all dutifully gazing into their iPhones, thumbs twitching, mouths stoic, shoulders hunched. I wonder at them, around them, through them. Where is my Kind bar?  Oh, sorry, my Kind Healthy Snack? The one my seven year old son turned down this morning as I excitedly offered it to him as a possible afternoon munchie.  "The last time I ate one of those I threw up" he says with a matter of fact confidence I haven't heard from him before. "Really? Not because of the bar, though." "Mmmm hmmm. I don't eat nut bars." News to me.  Found it.  I found the bar. It was in the bottom of my bag.