i'm in love with my mechanic
and other truths about driving a truck in a small town 🛻
estimated reading time: 8 minutes
greetings, greetings to you, dear reader.
we’re in the midst of a drought here in the valley between the mountains, i learned last week. there should be eight more inches of water in some of the ponds around us. with weed treatment and pest control, access to the water for the humans has slowly shuttered.
i stayed out of the water, indoors and outdoors, this weekend only due to a bubble in the sidewall of my right rear tire. taylor and jim at the mechanic got a good laugh as i walked through the doors of their waiting room yesterday — my monthly pilgrimage to their office.
my friends will tell you there are many other things to fix in my truck beyond this one tire: a ghost squeaky brake that no one can seem to figure out why it’s squeaking; a driver-side door that doesn’t lock; a rear window defroster that doesn’t turn on; a spare tire that hasn’t been replaced since the car was made; a lost keypad entry code that can only be found by taking it to a ford service center (the closest one is over an hour away); a chip in the window i got in zion national park (not to be confused with the chip in the window i got in jackson, wyoming); a broken gas cap door spring. i’m sure there are more i haven’t found yet.
i keep a running list of fixes in my notes app — the most pressing ones come to jim and taylor. jim reminds me i’m his favorite customer every time i see him. i like to think it’s because i have the most issues, i’m loyal, and i’m patient. it might be because i’m a woman in her mid-twenties who drives a pickup truck. and that does some things for folks (men, women, and the genderless) around here.
regardless of the why, four hours sitting in their waiting room? no problem. i brought my laptop, a book, a protein bar, and a bottle of water.
jim and i have spent so much time together — we might be able to call each other friends. i’ve heard about his wife, who’s from texas. i’ve heard about how he’s not allowed to bad-mouth the south, but i’m certainly welcome to, and he’ll just head-nod along. i’ve commiserated when he was out sick and celebrated when he returned healthy. i’ve heard about the rotating mechanic shops he’s been in charge of, how he’s trying to get his store further north back, how one day i might walk in and he’ll be gone.
“jim, if you leave this shop, i’ll drive the extra hour up to your new one,” i’ve told him multiple times.
he grins and says, “just make sure you call beforehand.”
taylor, upon hearing that jim was my favorite mechanic, immediately picked a fight with jim to win me over. i still call and ask for jim when i know he’s working (he’s off on tuesdays and fridays), but taylor got to order two new tires for me this weekend. and reminded me that he’d be in the office when i walked in yesterday.
“thanks again, taylor!”
“not a problem, sara. see you on monday.”
can i be in love with my mechanics? is this what it means to be in a relationship with a reliable man?
in july, i was in for my annual service (they don’t do state inspections) and two broken lights: one illuminating the license plate, the other the rear brake light over the cab. in june, i was in for the squeaky brake that couldn’t be fixed. in april, i had all of my shocks and struts replaced, because the tires were cupping. in march, i had my tires rotated and oil changed and lug nuts on the wheels replaced because they had been recalled years ago. was there another oil change and tire rotation in there? there must be…
every time i walk through their door, i make sure my pleading eyes are as kind as possible.
yesterday, i jokingly pointed to the anomaly that is me, driving a truck, sitting in the mechanic's waiting room for hours at a time at least once a month, with a lot to say about everything, “well, jim, i’m a little crazy.”
he looks me straight in the eye, laughs, and says, “don’t take this the wrong way, but i already knew that.”
jim knows how much i love my truck — he double checks the work in the garage and checks in on me during what feels like my overnight stay in the waiting room. taylor’s learning, but jim reminds me that it’s a miracle in and of itself that taylor remembered to place the order for the two tires. and taylor doesn’t walk around the corner to the waiting room when he sees my truck on the truck lift to catch up on the past few weeks of life like jim does. yet.
“whatever you do, jim, please just make sure she’s ok to drive,” i’ll say.
“she’s your baby. i get it. we’ll get her fixed right up,” jim responds.
again, i ask: am i in love with my mechanics? is this what it feels like to have a crush on michael moscovitz in the princess diaries?
the better questions might be why do i keep taking my truck, affectionately named eula after my great-grandmother and as an homage to naming all things after old southern women, to the mechanic? why do i have a ten-year-old truck that needs repairs every month? why don’t i get a volvo station wagon to relive my high school driving experience? why did i trade in my lemon-of-a-honda-crv?
i’ll tell you that it might be because i like a challenge — i am, as a friend told me once, a formidable woman. it might be because in middle school, the women i was surrounded by drove massive pickup and semi-trucks. watching them shift from park to drive with a gear selector sitting to the right of the steering wheel, the queer kid deep inside me was like, “uh, yeah, that’s hot.” it might be because i like how boys stare at me as i drive by (after all, i dip my toes in all of the ponds). it might be because there’s a sense of pleasure in having the largest load-carrying capacity. it might be because of all the cars in any parking lot, you sure as shit are going to see mine first.
but the most tactical and direct answer to that question would be i needed a truck to uproot my life. i had to carry 1,500 pounds 20,000 miles. that type of endurance calls for a pickup truck. and after that marathon, there’s no way in hell i’m letting her go until we’ve driven every last mile she’s got together.
i have to move the 1,500 lbs from its parking spot at the storage facility on friday. they’re paving the lot after last year’s flooding, and i’m tired of being charged $161 a month, when i could have the truck camper an hour closer for $60 less. on the drive, my usual 18 miles per gallon will drop to 8 miles per gallon. and eula will heat up to an internal transmission temperature of around 214ºF.
i certainly couldn’t move the camper with a tire that has a bubble in the sidewall. and by the time i head to the camper, i’ll have solved the old-spare issue, as well. i finally figured out how to winch down the spare sitting under the bed of my truck, in the same hour that i found the bubble in the tire last week. and quickly called taylor again to say, “ah, i need a second tire, too.”
“but you bought five tires last year… why do you need a second one? isn’t the spare under the bed?” taylor asked.
“taylor, it’s a longer story than it’s worth, i promise.” i responded, not wanting to go into the shameful story of how sleep-deprived-sara gave away the spare to the rv store on the day the camper got installed on the truck last year, because she couldn’t figure out how to drop the spare from the bed.
“ok, i’ll order a second one. and we can figure out whether to balance the back tires with the two new ones or just put one new tire on, once they come in.” taylor acquiesced.
“i’ll defer to you, i trust your expertise!” i shot back. (i love you! you’re the greatest! and the smartest!)
once in the waiting room yesterday, jim wrenched the story of the missing spare out of me — waiting patiently as i hemmed and hawed about the amount of detail i was willing to share about a three-day period in which my life felt like it was falling apart. he sat down in the chair across from me, as taylor answered the phone behind him.
“well, we’re going to move forward like that never happened. fresh start. clean slate. new chance to make decisions,” jim responded once i had regaled him of my tale and answered his many questions about where the tire is now and why i gave it away and what i was doing buying five tires in the first place if i was only going to use four.
“and i’m going to only let you and taylor advise me on decisions about my car from this day forward,” i replied with a grin, knowing i have another appointment to see them in three-days time.
this is small town living — i might be in love with my mechanics. or at least in love with the idea of them: they’re reliable. they care for my car. they’re good people. they’re great neighbors. it’s an easy place to spend four hours twice a month.
every time i leave their shop, i walk towards the door, turn, smile, and say, “see you soon!”
and without a beat, jim beams back: “but not too soon!”
onward,
sara
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