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Cars Love Us…

Before we bought our lovely new car, we had to deal with a car that overheated if you even so much as thought about driving it. What would start out as an innocuous little drive to the mall would turn into the Car Ride of Terror, complete with me panicking and yelping "It's going to the 'H'…It's at the 'H'…Oh, phew, the needle's going back down…oh shit! It shot right back up to the 'H'! Shhh! Do you hear any hissing? Is it hissing? I think there's something wrong with the needle. This doesn't make any sense! Should I pull over? What do I do? It's still at the 'H'! Stupiddumbuglypieceofshit car!"

One recent Sunday, the car was at it's very worst. It was overheating after mere minutes of driving it, and steam was pouring out if the hood. We decided that enough was enough and tried to find someone to tell us exactly what the hell was wrong with this deathtrap of a car. Ha! It was Sunday in Connecticut. Evidently, no mechanics work on Sunday. They do all kinds of things with tires, but no mechanical work, as we found out when we drove our steaming car into the Pep Boys parking lot.

Going to Pep Boys is bad enough; I mean, the three guys on the logo look friendly and smiley enough, but the actual Pep Boys staff can't be bothered to lift a finger to help you. They either strut around yelling out things in Car Part Code (the mechanic-type people&#41 or they stand behind a counter looking very bored, won't acknowledge that you're standing there until a good five minutes have passed, and then attempt to be as non-helpful as possible (the sales staff&#41. Everything you ask for is either out of stock, is backordered, has to be special ordered, or they plain just don't have it. When they really don't feel like doing anything, they tell you to "go look it up in that book over there." When you inform them that the book only goes up to 1987 models and you own a 1993, they respond, "Look, if it's not in the book then we ain't got it." Gee, thanks.

The last time we went to Pep Boys, we pulled into a parking space next to the ugliest color turquoise pseudo sportscar I've ever seen. It was surrounded by a group of men and boys yammering in Russian and admiring the handywork of yet another man who was installing something under the car. As soon as we started walking away, they start yelling at me, "Hey! Escuse me! Escuse me! Hey!" and gesturing for me to come back to the car. I do, and they start grunting and pointing — first at a scratch on their car door, then at my car door. Their door, my door. I get the point. Now, I know the door on our used car was a little rusty and kind of dented, but I also sure as hell would have noticed if I had opened the door and bumped their door. Especially with a huge group of people standing around it.

I argue with them and they keep speaking broken English and gesticuating at the door with their little cigarettes that they have smoked down to the point of hardly being able to hold the things anymore. Avery sees that I'm still over there, comes back and sticks up for me by demonstrating that if I open my door, it doesn't come anywhere near their door at all. One of the Russians obviously doesn't buy it and swings my door back and forth, back and forth as if trying to force it to hit their door. Ha! They're wrong! "Thanks for accusing me" I say. "Next time get your facts straight." One of them holds his hand up to me in a kind of Russian version of the "talk to the hand" motion, complete with cigarette, which at this point is just basically just the ashes of the cigarette. "Asshole." I say, for good measure. They don't respond, which was the most frustrating part of all. They probably don't even know what "asshole" means.

Posted in Scowls.


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