She Must Have Missed Shapes Day In Kindergarten

I work at a car dealership that only services one specific make. A customer I know too well — a very high-strung, needy lady who I guesstimate is in her forties — calls me in a panic because a warning light has lit up on her dash.

Customer: “It looks like a star! I don’t know what the star light means! What’s going on with my car?”

I have no idea what the h*** she’s talking about. There’s no light that looks like a star. Maybe the steering fault warning? But that pretty clearly looks like a steering wheel, which is circular. The light that means the headlights are on has some radiating outward lines, but there’s no way she’s never seen that one. The most common light is the yellow exclamation mark in a triangle they call the “generic warning light” which comes on sympathetically with just about everything, including the car saying it needs an oil change or has a bulb out or the tire pressures are low, but a star and a triangle are not remotely the same shape.

Me: “Come by after work so I can see what’s going on and, if needed, we’ll book you an appointment for next week.”

I was intrigued to see this mystery star-shaped warning light.

She came by after she was off work.

It was the triangle.