My husband always used to change the oil on his succession of vehicles himself. And I never liked him doing that. Even before I was aware of how dangerous it could be, it always seemed to me to be fraught with the possibility of doing harm to himself. It wasn't until about ten years ago, hearing on the radio a news report of someone I had known well having met his death while changing the oil on his SUV which had rolled forward pinning my old work colleague to the door of his garage while his wife was out for a morning winter jog that I fully understood what might occur.

My husband always assured me that he took every precaution possible to ensure nothing untoward would happen to him, and continued changing the oil himself, in the garage. Until he bought a Mazda which he discovered to his initial dismay was difficult to manoeuvre around to change the oil himself. After which he took it to the dealer's for oil changes and eventually moved his routine oil-change business to our local Canadian Tire garage.

Yesterday afternoon he mentioned to me that he thought there was a slow leak in one of the car tires. He felt he had a puncture and thought he would change the tire. But he discovered soon enough that the special socket to the unique bolt to that wheel was nowhere to be found; it wasn't where he was certain to find it, beside the other tools in the compartment under the trunk. He looked everywhere, wondering why on Earth he would ever have taken it out and placed it elsewhere.

Then he realized he hadn't. The last time, three weeks earlier, when he'd taken it into the Orleans location of Canadian Tire, when the oil change had been done, someone had undertaken to rotate the wheels, although he hadn't asked for that to be done. He hurriedly drove over to the garage and explained the situation to the manager; it seemed most reasonable to conclude that whoever had changed over the wheels had simply forgotten to replace the socket and my husband asked if the socket had been found and set aside. But it hadn't.

The people there know my husband well. We've been customers of the store in all of its previous locations, including the current one. That's about 40 years, although of course, client service personnel come and go. My husband always has good relations with service people because he respects what they do. The service manager was contacted and he was apprised of the situation. He assured my husband that though it was close to closing time, this would be given a high priority and looked after right away.

The tire was changed, and out of it was extracted a roofing nail; presumably picked up a short while ago on our neighbourhood street where a neighbour was having his roof replaced. Because the socket couldn't be found, a new system of bolt-and-socket was put in place. When my husband attempted to pay for the work done, he was waved off; it was complementary.

That's what is called responsibility, and outstanding service. My husband has gone off to buy one of those very large cakes sold at his favourite supermarket (not mine), to present it as a gift of appreciation to the people working in the garage. Reminds me of his having brought over two large such cakes when I was discharged from the Heart Institute three years ago after almost a week of intense scrutiny and care by the medical staff there.