Car Trouble...Part V

We drove about a mile up the road before hair guy pulled off to the side of the road. There, he put his foot on the brake and revved up the engine with the car in drive. Errrrrrrrrrkkkkkkkkkk! That's the sound my new tires made as he listened to the noises that the engine was making. "There ain't nothin' wrong with your transmission; it's the engine. Hear that? That sputtering? It's missing. When's the last time you had a tuneup?" he asked. "I've never had a tuneup," I replied. "All you need is some new spark plugs and wires, I'll clean out the fuel filter. It still could be the coil package (What's that?). I got this computer (he does) that will run all of the diagnostics and help narrow it down. It's gonna be a couple hours though, we got a lot of irons in the fire right now. You can wait in the office, but watch those stools, they lean a little...big girl like you might not be to comfortable." Relieved once again that it wasn't the transmission I let the comment about the "big girl" slide. I didn't want to piss this man off. I needed him to fix my car. Over the next few hours I watched and listened to the happenings in this place that was totally foreign to me. There were several men hanging around getting their vehicles worked on and they liked to talk. In fact, hair guy liked to talk too! I don't know how they got any work done, but between muffled guffaws and spits of chewing tobacco those vehicles being repaired were flying out of the place. Hair guy had walked into the office one time and told me how things were going. Noticing all of the pictures and trophies of the old cars I asked him if he had ever been up to the Cruise in that Mom and I had went to a few weeks ago. Of course, I told him all the details and especially that these cars cruise up and down the road, not just set in a parking lot with the hoods up. "I might have to check it out," he said. "Write down the information for me." A while later he came back in and told me that I was ready to go. My engine had in fact been missing. (Mom was right) He had installed new plugs and wires, cleaned the fuel throttle and replaced the air filter. He told me at first that it was going to be $275 but since I had tipped him off about the Cruise in up in Kentucky he would only charge me $250. (Worked for me.) As I was getting ready to leave we started chit chatting about old cars. "What kind of car do you have?" I asked. "I gotta '57 Chevy," he said. "You wanna see it?" "Sure!" "Follow me," he said. We walked back through the service area and through a door that I hadn't previously seen. In the room was car parts of all kinds and in the back corner, under a tarp, sat the Chevy. As he reached to pull off the cover he paused slightly, "I know what you're gonna say. What color is that? I don't want to offend you or anything but its got an unusual name." Somehow, I already knew what the color of that car was going to be. Yep, it was titty pink!

Car Trouble...Part IV

I called Mom on the way to let her know what was going on. "Didn't sound like the transmission to me," she said. It's missing, you ever had that thing tuned up?" "It's not a thing, Mom. It's a Mustang!" I said. "Whatever, I know what a car sounds like when it's missing. You better hope it's missing and not the transmission. That'll set you back at least 4 grand. Where you gonna get that kind of money? If you still worked at the Post Office, you might've had the money. I know you wanted to pursue your dream of being a writer and wanted something a little more interesting than selling stamps, but, I bet you didn't think that you was gonna need a new transmission. Well, I gotta go to Bingo. Call me if you need me to come get you while they work on your car." Click! I pulled into the parking lot of the Ford transmission guy's shop and walked into a place that was straight out of a movie. No doubt about it, this place was a garage. The office, if you could call it that, had a torn, black leather couch and two bar stools that leaned slightly to the left. On the walls, was picture after picture of souped up cars and a cabinet filled with trophies and ribbons from various car shows. As I peered into the service area, I could see various cars in differing stages of being worked on. I saw the usual Mac tool toolboxes, air hoses, and grease rags strewn about the place and a couple of girlie calendars placed in strategic locations, supposedly only visible to the mechanics. As I was standing there, a man, small in stature, but big in hair (he looked like he was from an 80s hair band) (watch out, Def Leppard) walked up to me and said, "Can I hep ya with somethin'?" "I hear you're the guy to see about a Ford Mustang transmission," I replied. "What's the problem?" I told him what was going on and how I had made my way to see him and finally he said, "Well, what we waitin' for? Let's take her for a spin and see what she'll do." And for the second time that day, my car laid rubber down as she was taken out for another spin...