more tuition in the School of Hard Knocks...

I've been driving my 20-year-old son, Chris, to and from his job every day for a little over a week now, because his car has been in the shop for repairs. Chris has to be at work by 8:00, so this means that I have to be at his apartment by 7:20, and then in the afternoon I have the pleasure of driving down to pick him up and drive him home in rush hour traffic. I’m not an early riser by choice, and yet I’ve enjoyed the unexpected pleasure of having some regular one-on-one time with Chris. Also, I’ve been bringing him breakfast most mornings. He’s tall (6'4") and painfully thin (about 150 pounds), so it gives me great pleasure to provide some simple breakfast and see it accepted so eagerly. He reminds me a little of a young bird still in the nest, as he scarfs down whatever I give him.

I went with him to drop off his car a week ago last Saturday at a garage in Rowlett, a zillion miles from where we live. "Why such a far away garage?" I asked. Chris has a Mazda. He explained to me that his buddy, Kevin, "knows all about cars, and especially Mazdas," and Kevin recommended the obscure garage. A word about the garage: I’m not going to reveal the name, because I don’t want to get sued for libel, but as I looked around the place, a quote from Nelson Algren (who was no stranger to trouble) leapt to my mind. The Algren quote was this: "Never play cards with a man called Doc. Never eat at a place called Mom’s. Never sleep with anyone whose troubles are worse than your own." Uh-huh. I stood in that garage, thinking that both Chris and Kevin needed to read some Algren.
Chris asked the mechanic to call him with the estimate before they started to work on the repairs, and the mechanic agreed to do so. The mechanic told him he could expect to have his car back by last Wednesday. Ha!

Never play cards with a man called Doc. Chris hadn’t even received a call giving him an estimate by last Wednesday, and although he called the garage repeatedly himself, he could only get through to an answering machine. Thursday afternoon, however, his persistence paid off. After getting the answering machine a number of times, Chris actually got through to one of the mechanics, who said that the estimate still wasn’t available because the garage owner was out, "test driving" the car. On Friday, Chris spoke with the owner of the garage. The guy placated Chris by promising to have the parts "Fed-Exed overnight and I'll pay the shipping, so your car will be ready by Monday afternoon for sure."

Uh-huh, and the check is in the mail, etc. Today, when I drove Chris to work, I asked him to call the garage and make sure the car was ready before we drove a zillion miles after work, to pick it up. Chris called me at 4:00 and said, "Mom, you’re not going to believe this: the phone at the garage has been disconnected!"

But I did believe it (Never eat at a place called Mom’s). Many thoughts went through my head, not least of which was that if the garage owner is so far behind on his bills that his phone service gets disconnected, I don’t want him working on Chris’ car, because I worry whether he would actually replace the parts that needed to be replaced (struts, brake pads, etc.). One of Chris' co-workers teased Chris that the car was probably in pieces in a chop shop as they spoke.

I picked up Chris after work and we drove out to get his car. We arrived at the garage at a little after 6:00, which is pretty amazing, considering that I’d picked Chris up just south of the city at 5:00. At the garage, we discovered that although they’ve had Chris’ car for 10 days, no one had even begun to work on it yet. The garage owner hemmed and hawed, and studied the floor and refused to meet our eyes. He said the phone was turned off because his bookeeper hadn’t paid the bill "because he’s been too busy." Uh-huh. He said that the requisite parts hadn't come in, and as soon as he said that, his two mechanics, who'd been hovering, hurried away, as if to distance themselves from him. Chris said he thought he'd arranged for them to be shipped Fed Ex, overnight. "I did!", he said, "and I paid $42.00 to do it, and they were supposed to arrive Friday, but they didn't, and then they were supposed to come today, but they didn't, and I have no idea where they are!" I said, "Well, if you paid Fed Ex for overnight shipping, it should be easy to figure out exactly where they are, because there'll be a tracking number."

He wouldn't meet my eyes. He ignored my comment about a tracking number, and simply repeated that he had no idea when the parts would come in.

Chris took his car (Never sleep with anyone whose troubles are worse than your own), and I followed him back to Dallas. Sometime this week, we'll start all over again, at a different garage...preferably one that’s closer to home, and not recommended by Kevin.

In the meantime, I’ll be driving him to and from work the rest of this week. And for tomorrow morning, I have a bottle of orange juice and a blueberry muffin on a shelf in my refrigerator, all ready to go.