The Mechanic_(0)

Her car was a piece of junk. There was no other way to put it. It should have been junked long ago, but I could tell that she couldn’t afford to replace it. This was the third time in as many weeks that she had brought the thing into the shop I work at and I was honestly getting tired of working on it. My boss, however, smiled every time that he saw her smiling face. The old bastard knew that she needed the car and would somehow come up with the money to get it fixed.
The first time she came in I didn’t see her. The work order for her car was on the board and since it was next in line I grabbed it and got to work. I had no clue what she looked like, but I knew she was short. I mean, the seat was nearly in the steering wheel and I had to slide it all the way back to get in the thing. Several hours, and one new water pump later, I was done and parked it back where she had left it that morning. I was curious exactly how short she was, so I tried to keep an eye on the car so I could try to see her when she came to get it. Apparently she came to pick it up while I wasn’t watching because I just did catch a glimpse of blond hair behind the wheel as it was pulling out the parking lot, Well, so much for that idea.
The next time she came in she was nearly in tears. She managed to drive the car in, but she probably shouldn’t have. Apparently she had noticed a very bad vibration as she was getting close to the shop and decided to stop in and have us check it out. It’s a good thing she did since the right rear wheel bearing had gone to hell and would have seized up or caused the wheel to come off the car completely if she had driven much farther. Again, we managed to fix it as inexpensively as possible.
She was a cute woman. She couldn’t have been more that five feet tall and had short blond hair. She had a few extra pounds on her, but strangely enough it did nothing to detract from her appeal. She had a very friendly face and was smiling despite nearly being in tears. She was also wearing glasses that really highlighted her beautiful eyes. Since I am not a good judge of age I couldn’t even begin to guess how old she was but I knew that she had a youngish daughter from some of the stuff that I saw in her car the last time it was in, so I guessed she was at least in her thirties. That’s perfectly acceptable for a guy that just recently passed the forty year old mark.
I decided then and there that the next time she came in, and having worked on her car twice now I knew there would be a next time unless she bought a new car soon, I decided that I was going to ask her out. I didn’t know what my plans were after that, but I was a least going to take her to dinner. I wasn’t really looking for a quick lay or a long term relationship, but she was cute and I wanted to get to know her, hell meet her for that matter.
Thankfully for me, things fell into place the very next week. The boss had just left to go home and I was about to close up when I heard her car pulling into the shop’s parking lot, again. This time it was smoking quite a bit and I knew that it wasn’t good. I walked up front and had just stepped behind the counter when she walked through the door.
I greeted her with a smile and said, “Hi Hazel. I see you brought my friend back to see me,” as I pointed toward her little car outside.
She smiled ever so sweetly and said, “Yep. I just can’t seem to get enough of this place thanks to my ex. He kept the truck when he left and that left me with that.” She pointed to her little car too and I briefly saw a pained look flash in her eyes.
“Well,” I said, “What seems to be the problem?”
She laughed jokingly when she said, “I need a new car.”
I said, “I’d like to help you out, but unfortunately, we only fix the ones that aren’t quite so new anymore. Let me pull it in the shop and take a look at it real quick and we will see what the problem is and decide at that point if it is worth sinking anymore money into.”
She continued to smile and said, “That would be great. Thanks.”
I took her keys and was thankful to be getting away from her for a minute. With her being so much shorter than me, I couldn’t help but see her magnificent cleavage as I looked down to talk to her. The last thing I wanted was to scare her off with the sight of the growing bulge in my pants as I talked to her.
I pulled her car into the shop and popped the hood. I checked all the usual suspects for the cause of the smoking issue and determined that it was a blown head gasket. On a lot of cars I would suggest to the owner that they simply replace it and keep driving it for many more years. Her car, however, didn’t have many more miles left in it, much less years.
I went back up front and told her the bad news. She was obviously upset hearing the terminal diagnosis for her car, but she took it all in stride. She asked me what my opinion was on what she should do.
“If I were you,” I told her, “I would just junk it and use that money as a down payment on something newer. In the shape it is in right now, you aren’t going to be able to sell it for anymore than you would get if you junked it. And,” I said, “If you junk it tomorrow, you can have cash in hand immediately instead of waiting for it to sell. God only knows how long that would take.”
“How would I go about junking it? I don’t know anything about any of that.”
Seeing this as a perfect opportunity to ask her out I said, “I’ll tell you what, I can junk it for you. Tomorrow is Saturday and I know that the junkyard is open until noon. I don’t have anything going on this weekend since it is the ex-wife’s weekend to have the kids. I could give you a lift home and then come back here and take care of all the stuff I have to do to junk it and get it to the junkyard first thing in the morning. That way you can have your money well before noon and still have time to get it in the bank and possibly go car shopping tomorrow too.”
She looked at me like a had two heads for a second. “You don’t have to go through all that trouble. I can probably get my brother-in-law to do it for me next week or something.”
I had to be careful at this point. I could tell she was a little nervous and I didn’t want to scare her off.