The tire air machine

A driver kneels at the curb, feeds two quarters into a slot built for a coin that mostly no longer circulates at that value, and waits for a display to acknowledge the transaction, which it does, eventually, with a hum. Ninety seconds of air follow, sometimes ninety five, sometimes forty, the machine's internal clock apparently a private matter between it and its manufacturer. The digital gauge reports pressure in increments of two, which is either sufficient precision for a task measured in single pounds, or not, depending on which forum thread a driver has recently fallen into. The machine's real subject is waiting, the same waiting found on hold, at a crosswalk, in a line for one register: a small, involuntary pause imposed on a task that feels like it should take no time at all. Most units offer a digital countdown, which helps only slightly, since the countdown and the actual airflow are, by several accounts, not always the same conversation. Kneeling beside the front tire, coins spent, hose hissing at an angle that never quite matches the valve stem's, a driver has time to notice things: the oil stain shaped like a state, the sticker half peeled from the housing, the particular pitch of the compressor working somewhere inside the box. Then it stops, on its own schedule, whether or not the tire has reached the number printed on the doorjamb.

H. G. Plimsoll