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The heavy stench of danger filled the car the minute I drove on to the dealership property and only grew heavier as I passed through the gigantic, pearly white garage door. Being acutely sensitive to the dangers of car repair, I could make out the admonition “Abandon all hope ye who enter here” cryptically swirled into the stucco finished walls. I knew I didn’t have a chance ,in well ….. hell ….of leaving this place whole. Virgil wasn’t with me, and I never leave a repair shop unscathed. This was gonna hurt.
Words were coming out of the technician’s mouth … they made sense … ALONE…, but strung together they were incomprehensible, devoid of meaning. Gas----vacuum--- recycles---- exhaust----carbon----emissions.
The crisp, unsoiled technician assigned to me might as well have been speaking French or Portuguese or Norwegian. Gibberish, pig-Latin, call it what you will, I had no idea what the devil he was saying. Gestures were no help. Speaking louder didn’t help either. Using a funny accent …… no good.
After winking dumbly and nodding my head for what seemed like an eternity at the dollar signs floating in the air before his face, I managed to decipher that the repairs for the problem would likely do nothing to help the car run better but would make the little, demonic, orange light on the instrument panel wink out and save the planet from global warming. I confide that I cared more about the mocking orange light than the planet. It was unnerving driving around with that engine icon leering at me. Besides ,I live in the South. What’s another degree to a heat index of 108?
“Well, what we have to do is blow smoke up your exhaust,” said the technician, which my brain immediately translated in to “Mr., since you don’t know jack, I am going to blow smoke up your...”. This certainly had an ironically honesty ring to it. A sort of in your face revelation of the facts. For $150 the magical smoke machine was going to reveal the real source of the problem…then we could talk about the cure, the elixir, the potion, the application of the leeches. No doubt there would be more filthy lucre required of me at that juncture.
“OK, so let me see if I have this right: for $150 you’re gonna blow smoke up my, uh ….exhaust and that will reveal the problem? Then, we’ll discuss the cure? And this will take how long?,” I asked.
“Oh, we’ll have to blah blah blah blah blah and blah blah …….. ‘bout two hours. Then we’ll know what’s wrong,” says he with a thin smile as he points the way to the waiting room.
As I pushed through the second door to the waiting … uh… Customer Lounge, the real source of my foreboding dawned on me. The whole process was proceeding with sterile, surgical precision. You pull up to the pearly gates. They roll up like a great, white cloud revealing a spotless floor and little bitty offices from which the crisp, unsoiled Technicians materialize like so many clammy handed funeral directors. They greet you with good grammar and explain things in a lofty language that puts you politely, but properly in your place as an automotive dunderhead. They roll your ride through another set of gates and out of sight. Then they usher you into a very cool…climactically speaking…Lounge with two big, flat screen TV’s, one ironically showing The Price is Right and the other a stupor inducing World Cup match. They hand you a card for free Wi-fi and point out the free pop-corn. And Rod Serling announces the latest ridiculously high customer service survey numbers while I wait, fighting the mind numbing, clinical, nature of the place and stupidly blinking at the sign that says, “Help save the puppies. Recycle.”
Where was the sound of impact wrenches? The smell of oil and anti-freeze? The guy with black finger nails and a name tag reading Bubba or Joe? The very details that make automotive repair sensual and visceral and real were missing. Bubba and Joe may be scallywags but they always smell the part. They disarm you with their oily, odor of competence and blue collar verbiage. They say words you’ve heard before. They offer you 40 weight coffee, off color jokes, familiarity and last year’s well worn magazines. You won’t find these guys collecting aluminum cans to save puppies. They may blow smoke up your exhaust but you like it. It’s real. You think you’re getting your exorbitant money’s worth. Not like this eat -off –the- floor clean dealership service department so far removed from reality.
After two hours, my funeral director found me in a corner gobbling up the free wi-fi and gave me the news.
“Well, after blowing copious amounts of nuclear ionized blah blah blah smoke up your exhaust and examining your blah blah blah system under a black light in an operating room…..uh, we discovered that you need a new gas cap. Old one’s cracked. The cap is $21 and the diagnostics are $150 plus tax. You can pay Rod Serling at the counter. Have a great day. And don’t forget to give Rod your aluminum can to help the puppies.”
Standing on the spotless floor behind the pearly gates watching my car return from the nether regions, I can’t help but laugh when the door pops open and another crisp, unsoiled, fellow asks, “Courtesy vacuum? It’s free?”
“Far from it brother, Far from it!,” I reply as I slide into the seat to drive back into the real world.
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