Silver grey exhaust plumed from the empty Lexus idling in the driveway, blocking my exit. The morning was still young, only just 9:00. I was going to be late to work, but not as late as I had feared when I'd turned into the drive at Doug's Auto and seen the line of frosted windshields parked along his fence.
I had called him two days prior about bringing my Camry in for inspection, and he had made it sound like his schedule was wide open. Proud of myself for avoiding the end-of-the-month rush for a change, I hung up without even making a specific appointment. But pulling up to the building this morning, it looked as if Doug had underestimated his popularity.
When I walked into the small office that morning, Doug was sitting at his computer. He looked up with a weary expression on his face. It felt too early in the day for someone to look that way. It would have been more fitting on the face of a grocery store cashier looking down an ever-growing line of customers two minutes from store closing. Ten or so work orders were lined up on the desk, each weighed down by a car key, each one demanding precedence and at least an hour's work. If I were the mechanic I knew it would easily take me well over a week to get through the stack, even if I had the know-how to do the jobs.
I handed Doug my registration reminder card and car key, and then the phone rang. He answered it on the second ring and listened for a moment while I stood awkwardly, not sure if he needed anything else from me. "Well, if it's just the battery," he looked up almost as if to address me at the same time as the caller, "things are crazy around here, but if it's just the battery, we can get through that today." Two more people walked in before he even hung up the phone--a mother and her son--and stole the chairs lined up by the door. Luckily they left after filling out a work order and having a conversation about getting another key made, so I was able to sit down by the door and read instead of on the stools at the counter.
While I waited, I looked around the office at the posters and cabinets filled with model cars - mostly mustangs from what I could tell. I wondered how it made Doug feel to be working on people's Camrys and Dodges when he clearly had a passion for older, sportier models. No doubt it had been his passion for these old cars that had gotten him into this business, but had he counted on being slammed on a Thursday afternoon with inspecting someone's 99 Camry and replacing the battery on someone else's Chevy Malibu?
Doug was in and out several times while my car ran through its tests--no doubt one of his other mechanics was on the job. Two ladies came in, one saying in a low voice, "well it's not $600 worth of work." When they didn't see anyone in the shop but me, they decided to go out into the garage. "Can we do that?" I heard one ask as they closed the door behind them. Without even hearing the other answer, I knew she was the type who was used to doing whatever she wanted.
They came back in shortly after to settle their account with Doug. "$256" I didn't look up from my book, but when Doug said, "Wow, these are so fresh I can't even count them," I could tell she had paid with cash. The silence that followed clued me in that he was counting the bills. After a moment he said, "Let's try that again." More silence followed as he counted through the stack of bills a second time. "This is only $220," he said after a moment. The lady who had handed him the cash said, "Oh," and then looked into her purse again. The other woman, whose idea it had been to walk back into the garage, said, "She's trying to cheat you." She sounded like she had wanted it to be funny, but I wondered how much truth there was behind that statement. Would someone really try to pull that off?
A few minutes later, another customer came in who had called in advance and had requested a tune-up. He was a young guy, somewhere in his twenties, who seemed desperate to seem knowledgeable in this arena. He wanted it to be clear that he wasn't going to be bamboozled by some grease monkey working in the garage, "I also wanted to ask how much you were going to charge for this."
Doug seemed a bit exasperated, but responded with humor, "Oh, five-thousand?" From my vantage point, I couldn't see the younger guy's reaction, but after waiting for the joke to sink in for a moment Doug answered, "Well a tune-up usually runs about $150, and then another $35 for oil change,"
The customer then went back and forth with Doug about what work he actually needed done before Doug finally answered, "So sometimes a lot of people say tune-up when what they really want is just a service." I listened carefully and took mental notes on the differences so that I could use the terms properly if the need arose.
Even with the interruptions, Doug didn't keep me waiting long, running my card and handing me my paperwork while simultaneously explaining to the other customer still seated at the counter why synthetic oil would cost him so much more. "Wal-Mart will give it to you cheaper, but I've seen them make a lot of mistakes, too. But they can give it to you cheaper than I can even buy it wholesale."
The kid was trying to haggle and it seemed to me that Doug would have been just as happy if the kid had decided to go to Wal-Mart after all. He said a few encouraging words about my brakes as he handed me my receipt and then I was out the door, and if it hadn't been for that Lexus, I would have been out of his hair completely. There was no way around it, and I wondered if it belonged to that entitled kid trying to talk Doug down on synthetic oil. He seemed like the type whose mom and dad would have bought him a Lexus.
With no signs of the car moving, I opened the door to the shop again. The kid was sitting by the door now, and I asked him, "Are you the Lexus out here?" He looked up and shook his head. About then, Doug came in with a cell phone to his ear. He looked confused to see me again. I told him about the Lexus with no one in it and he walked out with me. After glancing at the car, Doug strode over to the nearest garage door and hollered, "HOWIE!" The strain in his voice as he shouted indicated that Doug's temper couldn't take much more this morning.
An older man in a coat and hat came out of the garage and said something about having brought some food in for the guys while Doug barked at him about a customer trying to get out. I felt bad about being the cause of it all, but Howie didn't seem too put out. As Howie backed the Lexus back down the driveway, I climbed into my car and waved to Doug.
He waved back, and I imagined he was hoping to not lose a customer over something so stupid as an old man who wanted to feel useful by bringing in breakfast. Maybe if I had been having a day more like Doug's it would have been a bigger deal to me, too. But it's when I'm in the worst moods that I forget that my own feelings can be an incredibly inaccurate tool for determining how someone else feels. To me, all that mattered was that my inspection was done, the sun was climbing, and the morning felt fresh and crisp as I drove away.
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