My Planet: Finding Humor in the Oddest Places

Unpopular Mechanics

My old mechanic, Stephen Lee, was an honest man. One morning I had my car towed to his garage with a note affixed, stating, “Will not start!!”

He called my office to tell me that the reason it wouldn’t start was that the gas tank was empty. He could have lied and said it was the starter. Then he said, “I’m charging you $50—because you’re stupid!” which was possibly more honesty than was called for, but so be it.

Stephen Lee retired early, an event I take no small amount of credit for, having owned a sickly 1966 Volvo these past ten years. I did not take the news well, for it meant finding another mechanic. I do not trust car mechanics. I don’t know anything about engines, because I, like other women, lack the take-apart gene.

From a young age, the male feels a powerful need to pry the backs off mechanical objects and disassemble them to see what makes them tick. If the family is lucky, the compulsion will strike just before the picture tube or what-have-you would have blown or otherwise stopped ticking on its own.

The female does not share this compulsion, except when it comes to men she is dating. Many’s the time I’ve tried to open up Ed and see what makes him tick (neurosis and bran, so far as I’ve been able to figure out).

Anyway, men understand motors and women don’t. You may say that this is a stereotype, and I won’t argue with you because I know even less about stereos than I know about cars. So your male mechanic can say to your female car owner, “You’ve got a fraying bammy crank in your left vorculator, and your frunchions are shot. Gonna run you $700,” and there’s no way for us to know if this is true or if, in fact, it’s his home entertainment center that needs the new vorculator.

My new mechanic, Andy, seems like a nice enough fellow. I base this primarily on the fact that he breeds parakeets in a little aviary inside the shop. Though part of me believes there’s a how-to book out there for shady car mechanics that includes the line: “Set up a parakeet aviary. Women will think you’re nice.”

I recently took my car in for a tune-up, hoping this would solve the problem it was having. “When I hit the gas, it goes, ‘UNH UNH UNH UNH UNH,’” I said intelligently. Andy took notes while I talked, and nodded, like a concerned therapist, though for all I know the notes said, “Total ding-dong. Give her the fraying bammy crank story.”

Andy’s theory was that water and “sediment” had been getting into the gas tank through my ill-fitting gas cap. This would cost $450 because, being men, they had to take apart the whole rear end of the car to get the tank out and clean it up.

“Can’t you just clean it out with a suction thingie?”

There was a pause, while Andy debated whether it was worth $450 to hang up and never have to listen to my voice again. “I don’t have a ‘suction thingie.’”

Andy said I was putting the cart before the horse. I’m not sure what he meant by this, but a horse and cart sounded pretty appealing right about then.

Then he said, “If I do it your way, will you sign a form saying ‘Mary Roach agrees that this might not work and that she won’t yell at me if it doesn’t?’” I considered the possibility that Andy was an honest man and that my car was the more appropriate target for my anger. I agreed to do it his way and spent the $450. As usual, I went away feeling like a sucker. Or a suction thingie. But let’s not get technical.