Part of my daily routine is a country drive in my new car, a Lincoln Aviator.  The fact that it is new is irrelevant.  My car – whatever it may happen to be at the moment – likely qualifies as new or practically new. What is closer to the unburnished truth is that I adore driving an automobile. It oddly enlists the same spiritual energy I derive from playing the piano. It is a catharsis of sorts. The purity of my endeavour was however initially contaminated. I wasn’t out of the garage more than a second early this afternoon when I got it into my head that I should have washed the floor to expel a minor residue from the undercarriage. Upon leaving the garage I had noticed the blemish in the rear view mirror.  It was so trifling that I sought to dismiss its gravity.  But this was futile. Because I hadn’t attended to it immediately the obsession haunted me for the entirety of my outing.

At the gas station I attempted to expiate my lingering garage guilt by washing the front rubber mat of the car with the windshield washer squeegee. This helped.  But it did not purge the erstwhile omission. The neurosis required nothing short of deliberation. Then after filling the tank with gas I noticed that the credit card receipt indicated that my Petro-Canada points were zero.  This was the second time in as many days that I had seen identical misinformation. When I addressed the clerk of the gas station concerning this issue I was told it would be necessary for me to contact Head Office. My reaction was to ignore the problem.  I recalled that two days ago I had also bought a Season Pass car wash card and applied the extra points to the purchase of several lottery tickets. This I reasoned may have constituted the delay in the account reconciliation.

Like the wash of the garage floor, the settlement of the Petro-Canada points wasn’t content on the back burner. By this time I had reconfigured my afternoon to curtail the projected jaunt and return home instead to wash the garage floor and then contact Petro-Canada. The cleaning of the garage floor was a gainful ceremony.

As for Petro-Canada, I telephoned the 800 number found on the web site.  The agent – I believe her name was Janice – was remarkably pleasant.  She agreed there was an apparent problem which she advised would be bumped upstairs.  Apparently I can expect a return call within two business days. Meanwhile I undertook the “registration” of my new Season Pass.  This is something I don’t normally do because it is primarily an expedition of solution if the card is lost or stolen. As soon as I completed the registration of my card, my account adjusted to include the points that should have been credited from the start. This was good.

While the tiny condensation on the garage floor and the absence of a few points on my Petro-Canada account may amount to nothing the sad reality is that I am indiscriminate when it comes to detail. It would naturally suit me to report that certain details are negligible. This is certainly incontrovertible. Yet I have learned over 40 years of the practice of law that unless there is an urgency which excludes the investigation, detail of any scope is not negligible. Indeed its avoidance can prove to be an unimaginable threat if not indeed a palpable liability. Though I didn’t define a dirty garage floor or the absence of a few points on my gas card as deserving of such clinical examination, I have to confess the miniature clarifications were singularly rewarding. Such modest achievement propels my day!