I needed a new head gasket.<\/p>\n
One of the things I love about driving a Japanese car is nothing breaks.\u00c2\u00a0 So when something does, prematurely, aren’t head gaskets supposed to leak sometime after 100,000 miles?, I always wonder if I’m being ripped off.<\/p>\n
My father believed in the dealer.\u00c2\u00a0 But an independent mechanic will give you an honest appraisal, he’ll tell you you can drive for a while, not to worry.\u00c2\u00a0 Because usually the independent has more experience.\u00c2\u00a0 Then again, the only indies I’ve gone to used to work at the dealership, I’m not about to go foraging for someone new just to save a few dollars.\u00c2\u00a0 Still…<\/p>\n
And it’s even worse when they say it’s not critical, that you don’t have to fix it today.\u00c2\u00a0 Okay, I’m coming in for service again in about seven months…\u00c2\u00a0 TOO LATE!\u00c2\u00a0 Your sparkplugs could be fouled, your engine could miss!\u00c2\u00a0 Okay, you sold me, just do it.<\/p>\n
So what started out as a routine oil change turned into a $500 bill.<\/p>\n
And I’m so frustrated and dejected that I decide to walk home.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s not close, but it’ll give me time to chill out, otherwise I’ll be bouncing off the walls.\u00c2\u00a0 But when the service writer just called to say my machine was ready and offered me a ride back, I took it.<\/p>\n
He said the driver would call me on my cell.<\/p>\n
He didn’t.\u00c2\u00a0 He beeped.\u00c2\u00a0 I wasn’t sure it was him.\u00c2\u00a0 I went outside.\u00c2\u00a0 There was someone turning around in the next driveway in a make unlike the one I drive but it turned out to be my ride, I told him to wait a second for me to go inside and get my wallet and my keys.<\/p>\n
I always talk to the driver.\u00c2\u00a0 He’s doing me a favor.<\/p>\n
But I remember Coran Capshaw telling me he always talks to the runner.\u00c2\u00a0 You learn more from the person on the street than the one in the ivory tower.<\/p>\n
And this man is complimenting my neighborhood.\u00c2\u00a0 Which begs the obvious question, where does he live?<\/p>\n
And after learning he owns two houses in the Fairfax district, I asked him how long he had been working at the dealership.<\/p>\n
Twenty three years.<\/p>\n
Whew!<\/p>\n
I remarked that you’re lucky to have a job at all today.<\/p>\n
And that’s when he started pouring out his philosophy.<\/p>\n
You can’t sit on the sidelines, you can’t turn down a nine dollar an hour job waiting for one that pays eighteen.\u00c2\u00a0 You can never make up the money you lose staying home.\u00c2\u00a0 You’ve got to take any job.\u00c2\u00a0 And do anything they tell you. Because if you show you can work, you’re gonna get a raise.<\/p>\n
And I thought how knowledgeable this guy was.\u00c2\u00a0 The hardest thing is finding a good employee, someone you can trust.\u00c2\u00a0 You don’t want to blow him out to save five bucks, you want to overpay him to get him to stay!<\/p>\n
Still, the guy owned two houses…\u00c2\u00a0 Did his wife work?<\/p>\n
Well first of all, he almost lost both houses, he borrowed too much money to remodel, based on their present value, as opposed to the hundred grand he paid for them back in 1997.<\/p>\n
But no, he’s not married.\u00c2\u00a0 He’s divorced.\u00c2\u00a0 Back in 1999.<\/p>\n
Did he have someone new?<\/p>\n
No.\u00c2\u00a0 Girls today want someone with money.\u00c2\u00a0 Who’s young.\u00c2\u00a0 He’s fifty four.\u00c2\u00a0 And he’s got two grandchildren.\u00c2\u00a0 But he’s not gonna stay at home like he once did.<\/p>\n
Yes, for five years after his divorce this guy stayed at home watching television.\u00c2\u00a0 He was just too depressed to leave, to engage.<\/p>\n
If that ain’t the modern condition.<\/p>\n
And he talked about wanting that five years back.<\/p>\n
I want the ten years back that I wasted after my divorce.<\/p>\n
But one day he said enough.\u00c2\u00a0 He opened the front door and put on a smile.<\/p>\n
How did he do it?\u00c2\u00a0 How did he motivate himself?<\/p>\n
He punched his heart and then pointed to the sky.\u00c2\u00a0 Himself and God.<\/p>\n
Good for him.\u00c2\u00a0 I needed psychotherapy.\u00c2\u00a0 Too many people take the easy way out, they kill themselves, or live quiet lives of desperation.<\/p>\n
Even though it was difficult he put on a happy face.\u00c2\u00a0 And he discovered the energy he gave out came back in spades. If he was nice, people were nice to him.\u00c2\u00a0 He made all kinds of new friends.<\/p>\n
And then we were in the garage.<\/p>\n
I got distracted by the cashier.<\/p>\n
I did a post mortem with the service writer.<\/p>\n
I wanted to leave, but they were washing my car.<\/p>\n
And that’s when I noticed the man hunched over the hose was my driver.<\/p>\n
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I needed a new head gasket. One of the things I love about driving a Japanese car is nothing breaks.\u00c2\u00a0 So when something does, prematurely, aren’t head gaskets supposed to leak sometime after 100,000 miles?, I always wonder if I’m being ripped off. My father believed in the dealer.\u00c2\u00a0 But an independent mechanic will give […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3840","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-ZW","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3840","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3840"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3840\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3841,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3840\/revisions\/3841"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3840"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3840"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3840"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}