I finally gave in and took the car to the garage yesterday.


(I said I wouldn't. But dammit, you try looking into those puppy dog headlights and saying, 'no' to that car. It's not possible. It's not like she's a fat ugly Hyundai or something.)


Actually, I took the car to the dealer. The eeeevil dealer. You know the kind; hell, maybe you've got a local eeeevil car dealer in your town, too. The kind that grin at you when you walk in, because they know they're just about to stick. It. To. You. But. Good.


The only time we go to the dealer is when that annoying little 'Service Engine Soon' light comes on. Anything else -- a broken tail light, a dent in the fender, bees nesting in the glove compartment, that sort of thing -- and we take our vehicular reaming at another garage, thank you very much. At least they buy you dinner before they bend you over and whip out the grease guns. Figuratively speaking, of course. About the dinner. Bah.


Anyway, this dealer garage dealie blows hippos. And every time that damned light comes on in the car, we're out another few hundred bucks. Because it's never something simple. Oh no -- that would be too easy. A malfunctioning sensor, or an easy-to-get-at-and-replace valve -- these sorts of issues are out of the question entirely. Sure, the grease monkeys mention the simple stuff when you call them up:


'Oh, yeah, bring the car in. It's usually just a shorted bulb, or a frayed wire. No problem.'


Then you take them the car, and they call back and say:


'Well, gee, we looked into it, and actually, it's your transmission. Apparently, the car didn't come with one, so we'll have to build you a new one. From scratch. And we have to order the parts. From Romania. And it's East Romania, so it's going to be a little pricier.'


Dildos. Actually, this trip involved three calls -- count 'em: one, two three; backwards: three, two, one; now in Spanish: uno, dos, tres; and finally, in Roman: I, II, III -- because the problem apparently kept getting worse, and worse, and worse, as the day went on. Me, I think the mechanic had money on a few ball games, and kept losing, so he upped the charges to pay off his bookie. But I'm cynical that way. Maybe I was just paying for his kid's braces, or his grandma's new lung. You never know.


At any rate, they found one problem -- a 'simple little thing', they said -- and called about that. Then, when they 'got in there', they found a couple more issues. And finally, when they tried 'cleaning the pipes', one snapped or split or magically insta-rusted or something, so they had to install a new one. From scratch. And they had to order the part. You see? You see where this is heading? Douchebags.


(Actually, to be fair, they didn't order the part from Romania, just New York. But it was East New York, so it was a little pricier. Le sigh.)


If that doesn't convince you, here's the best proof I've got that the garage is -- say it with me now, kids -- eeeevil. The total charge this trip? $666. That's right -- six hundred and sixty-six dollars. They should just call the place Beelzebub Motors, shove a flaming pitchfork up your ass when you bring your car in, and get it over with. At least there'd be no question then. Hell, I'm not looking for an honest garage; that's crazy talk. I just want truth in advertising; is that too much to ask?

Going to work yesterday cost me five hundred dollars.


I suppose that's technically not true. To be fair, you'd have to add back the salary I made at work yesterday, minus the cuts for federal taxes, state taxes, Social Security, my retirement account, life insurance, health insurance, parking, and the annual office Cinco de Mayo fund. Plus the new slipcovers on the boss' couch I'm still paying for, from last year's Cinco de Mayo fiesta.


So in reality, going to work only cost me approximately four hundred and ninety-three dollars and twelve cents.


Yay, job. Whoop-de-doo.


Here's what happened: I was driving along, minding my own business and rocking out to Celine Dion The Wiggles Christopher Cross the latest manly death metal sensation. I forget the name of the band -- Devilspawn? Dripping Evil? Deathtongue? It's not important, really.


The significant bit happened as I was crooning belting out a chorus and *WHAM*, the passenger side of the car lurched and wobbled ominously. There was nothing obviously there, except the curb I wasn't near. No cars or motorbikes or filthy street urchins were to be seen.


But something was there, and whatever it was blew the hell out of my right front tire. In seconds, the car was limping and *kathump*-ing along in rhythm to the music. As 'percussion', it was sort of intriguing. As 'roadworthy vehicle', it was quickly fading out of the picture. I needed a garage, and fast.


So I found one. But slow. Painfully slowly, in fact, which is how I rolled and shimmied to the nearest garage I knew. I'd seen them with a busted tire before -- two at once, in fact. They're good people. Honest and hardworking, as far as I can tell. They probably call their mothers every weekend, too.


Anyway, I finally made it to the garage. They offered to sell me a new tire, and I graciously accepted. They noted -- quite politely, mind you -- that my inspection sticker was a few weeks overdue.


You see, here in the progressive Commonwealth of Masshole-achusetts, we have a mechanic check our wiper fluid and left tail lights every year, to make sure that the least complicated and most trivial bits of the vehicle are functioning properly. This is called an 'inspection', and we pay thirty bucks a pop for the privilege of the service.


We then pay several hundred more dollars to fix, reattach, patch, clean, buff, wax, or replace bits of the car that the mechanics say are faulty. Even though those parts aren't actually part of the inspection, and couldn't realistically be observed by anyone who's not 'examining' your car with X-ray specs and a high-powered chainsaw.


Basically, the 'problems' the 'mechanics' 'find' are all part of the process. We think of it as an extra tax, for having the audacity to own a car and gum up the environment in the first place. We're in New England; we're easily guilted like that.


So, long story marginally shorter, that's exactly what happened. The missus had already scolded me for letting the inspection lapse anyway, so I let the mechanics open her up for a look.


(That's the car, not my wife, mind you. I'm not letting any damned grease monkeys tinker under my wife's hood.


Or anyone else, for that matter. I even installed a Lo-Jack. Don't ask. And no touchy, leadfoot. I'm watching you.)


Five hours and five hundred dollars later, I had the car back, with not one, but three new tires, a remounted exhaust doohickey underneath, and a fancy new inspection sticker worth its weight in... hell, I don't know. What costs five hundred bucks for a fraction of an ounce, anyway? Gold-plated platinum? Really, really good crank? Concentrated stripper sweat? I'm not sure.


The truly amazing thing is that the ordeal could have cost me more. After a point, this garage simply wouldn't take my money. I told one guy that if they're changing three tires anyway, and I suspect the fourth has a slow leak, why not give me a whole new set?


And he pooh-poohed me. Insofar as a large, greasy Italian mechanic can 'pooh-pooh' anything, really. More likely, he 'pshaw'ed me, or 'pfffffftttt'ed me. Later, I was even 'fuggedabahtit'ed. The point is, they wouldn't do it. They were content to make the other fixes, patch my last remaining original tire, and leave it at that. I guess mechanics in New England are easily guilted, too.


After they've collected my five hundred bucks, of course. Dese guys in da garage, dey's sweethearts and all, but dey gotta eat, ya know what I'm sayin'? Youse ain't gettin' outta dere with a full wallet, but pays more than five hundred smackeroos? Fuggedabahtit!

The dream is alive.


For months now, some jackass has been double-parking his Mitsubishi convertible in the basement of the garage at work. Every damned day, in the same damned spot-and-a-half, like he owns the damned joint.


(Yes, I'm assuming it's a 'he'. I've never seen the driver, but like I said, it's a ragtop convertible. Last time I checked, women don't drive cars that compensate for small penises.


And did you notice the car in the picture above? That's just a pic of a similar model I found online, not the chariot of the jackass in question. And still it's not parked between the lines.


I'm thinking there's either some sort of 'retarded parker' clause in the leases for these things, or the cars are causing brain damage. Someone should really look into it.)


Seeing the same car asininely parked every day -- especially when there are no other available spots in the basement -- gets old after a while. I've often walked past that car -- coming from a spot far further from the elevator -- with visions of sabotage dancing in my head. Soap on the rearview mirrors, field mice in the gas tank, replacing the spark plugs with cocktail weenies -- it's a little different every time. And I would never actually stoop to teaching the assbag a lesson like that.


Probably.


Still, every day I have the dream. But a few short hours ago, I thought the dream had died forever.


I left the office late tonight, as usual. On Fridays in particular, most people clear out pretty early, leaving my whole floor lonely, quiet, and empty.


(See? There's a good reason I stay late. I'm not just 'weird'.


Quiet, you.)


I closed down my computer, made my way to the lobby, and hopped onto the elevator going down to the garage basement. Just as the elevator doors were inching shut, a hand slipped between them and a person stepped in with me. It was the boss.


Not my boss. The big boss. The chief. The honcho majoro. El cheesus gigantus.


As we rode down in silence -- because it's tricky to have a conversation with someone who doesn't realize you exist -- I had an epiphany. I often leave the office late. Jackass double-parked car is often still there when I leave. Big honcho boss probably leaves late -- maybe even later than me.


Uh oh.


Clearly, if the boss owned the offending car, my dream of someday doling out a vehicular comeuppance would be dashed. I could conceivably, on a particularly vindictive day, send a message to a fellow peon by tinkering with his car. But I couldn't possibly risk fiddling with the big boss' ride. If he saw me, I'd be cooked. Quite possibly literally -- he's a powerful guy, and who knows what sort of perverted punishment he could get away with? I'm not saying he'd eat me or anything, but I wouldn't rule out being boiled in oil, or toasted in a chafing dish of some kind.


And even if he didn't see me, he's the boss. He's got minions. Hell, we're all his minions. If I actually keyed the guy's car or puked down his sunroof, I might even be contractually obligated to turn myself in. And that's some fine print I'm not interested in reading.


(And yes, I know I said it's a convertible, so it doesn't have a sunroof.


It's a figure of speech. I'm talking about puking down the boss' sunroof, euphemistically,


Not that way. Perv.)


Anyway, when the elevator doors opened, it was clear the game was on. There were only three cars left in the basement: my car straight ahead, the jackass two-space-filling tiny-peener-compensating convertible to the left, and an understated luxury sedan to the right. If the boss veered right, the dream was alive; if he turned left, I could never seriously consider rubbing Vaseline all over that car ever again.


Sure, I could laugh at his apparently underdeveloped penis and his obvious resulting inferiority complex. But only to myself. Minions, remember?


Luckily for my darker side, the boss wandered off to the right, hopped into his sedan, and drove off into the night. That left me alone with my car and the needledick convertible. I considered taking the opportunity to wreak some havoc, but all the excitement had tuckered me out, so I simply drove home. There will be other days to drain the jackass' transmission or bend his antenna into Slinky shapes.


And I don't mean euphemistically. Not this time.

We have a saying in our office:


'It's never the rocket science stuff.'


Meaning that it's not the complicated, convoluted, thinky sorts of things that we spend most of our time on, nor are those the sorts of things that cause us the most headaches. We're a code-writing group for the most part, and we do occasionally run into some sort of mondo scary algorithm or brain-melting logic to code. But those are not our biggest problems.


It's not like those things are simple, mind you. I, for one, am not the perkiest pair of nipples in the proverbial porno -- so these sorts of intellect-requiring projects can cause their share of hair-pulling days and fitful, sleepless nights.


(Well, it's either the projects, or those lunch-truck burritos I've been eating. I'm guessing it's a little from column A, and a little from column B.)


But for all of the 'hard' work we struggle through, it pales in comparison to the time spent tracking down the 'easy' stuff. Scanning thousands of lines of code for a rogue comma or semicolon. Troubleshooting a system top to bottom -- only to find that someone accidentally kicked the plug on the server. Trying desperately to understand the problem a user is seeing, and later discovering their video card was on the fritz. These are the most common issues -- the piddling little details that grind us to a halt every now and then. It's never the rocket science stuff.


Why do I bring this up? Because for me -- not the swingingest single at the orgy, remember -- this rule of 'easy stuff hard' seems to extend to my commute to the office, as well.


To be fair, there is some 'hard stuff' involved with driving to work, as well. Unsynchronized stop lights, speed traps, elderly Sunday-driving obstacles -- but I can usually find my way around or through these difficulties. My biggest problem lately has been the card reader at the office garage.


The reader panel is a flat plastic rectangle, about three inches wide by five inches tall. At the upper right corner is a little status light -- the sort of thing that lights green and bleeps reassuringly when you've been scanned properly, or flashes red and bleats at you like an angry goose when there's an error. For months -- months, I say! -- I believed that the 'status light' was also the card reader. Most of the card readers I've ever seen have a little optical dealie like that to recoqnize the card.


What I could never understand is why scanning the card was so damned difficult. I took great pains to shimmy the car close to the reader, and stretch my card up by the light. But often I'd have to wave it back and forth, turn it around, and waggle it up and down to get the stupid garage to let me in. I'd be sitting there, doing half the hokey pokey in my driver's seat, while cars piled up behind me waiting for their turn. Is that any way to start a day of being shackled to your cubicle? I think not.


So, on Friday I made the discovery that you must have seen coming by now. The status light is just that -- a light. A simple brainless LED, blind to the world and ignorant of any cards or raving idiots waving around in front of it. As it turns out, the whole rest of the panel is the card reader, and -- assuming you actually wave your card in front of it -- works quite nicely. All those times I sat, waving and swiping and cursing Henry Ford and Karl Benz for popularizing the production of the infernal machines that led to my garage fiasco, I was missing the card reader doohickey entirely. I might as well have waved my card at the garage wall, or in front of the attendant's face.


(I tried the latter once, actually. The guy let me into the garage, but I'm convinced he snuck over and peed on my wheels while I was at work. When I peel out, it still smells like asparagus.)


Anyway, now I know. So I should be able to get into the garage without any further delay or humiliation. I suppose the moral of the story is this -- when you're not the sharpest shucker in the crab shack, everything is 'rocket science'. Meh.

I saw this great magic trick today. Just super.


I had my car inspected this afternoon. Now, normally I'd wait until the last minute for this type of thing -- and often, until after the last minute, driving around with expired stickers on the car. I'll do that sometimes. I'm a rebel. And lazy. And forgetful. So it happens.


But not this time. This time, I remembered, and went to the garage a full three days before the last inspection expired. That's crazy, folks. And never mind that I mainly went to get out of the awful, life-sucking tedium of the crappy thing I happened to be doing at work today. This is all that matters -- I was on top of the inspection, before the car was illegal. Somebody pour the champagne.


So, here's the magic trick. I took the car to this gym near my office. I'd never been there for an inspection -- it just happened to be convenient -- so I didn't know how they operated. And apparently, they're into the 'audience participation' type of car inspection. Which I'd never heard of, frankly, but it's out there -- as I found out.


The way it works is this -- instead of taking the key to the car and ushering me into a waiting room, the garage guy had me park it where he wanted it. And then told me to hang around, because he'd 'use' me for the inspection. So I poked around, while he kicked the tires and looked under the skirt. Standard stuff -- nothing technical or mechanical, really.


Then he pulled me into the game -- I turned the key over in the ignition, without completely starting the car. That let me help him test the lights, the wipers, and the turn signals. It was a quick inspection -- in and out in fifteen minutes. No worries, no problems; thirty bucks, and that was it. I never even popped the hood. This was the 'nothing up my sleeves' portion of the Grease Monkey Magic Show.


So, we shook hands, he opened the garage door, and... the car wouldn't start. I've never had trouble starting the car -- ever. One turn of the key, maybe two -- that's all it takes. And in that inspection garage today? Nothing. Not even a growl. I don't know how the hell he did it. Those mechanics are good.


So, a half an hour and a hundred and twenty more bucks later, I got out of there. With a new battery -- and perhaps one I needed, but still. I'd like to know what sort of mojo the guy used to drain the battery from the other side of the hood. And having me sit in the car the whole time -- that's brilliant. Regular David Copperfield stuff, that is.


Anyway, the car got inspected and I'm out a hundred and fifty bucks or so. But there's plenty of juice under my hood now, and I saw a nice magic trick in the process. Sort of an expensive show for a Monday afternoon, but hey -- still better than getting that crap at work done. Some things in life truly are priceless.