ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, February 27, 1996 TAG: 9602270074
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: Beth Macy
SOURCE: BETH MACY
A woman needs a good car mechanic the way a fish needs...water.
She needs one who doesn't talk down to her, one who doesn't take advantage of her car cluelessness by selling her parts she doesn't need.
Like her only pair of jeans that fit, an honest and respectful car mechanic can be a woman's best friend.
I know because, alas, I have had the other kind. Two cities ago, I went through a series of VW mechanics who were not only unpleasant but couldn't fix my car. In my last city, I found a charming mechanic named Louie who was fun to run into at bars, but didn't know a lug nut from a Brazil nut. It was a very costly friendship.
Roanoke has a hold over me now - but not because of my job or my neighborhood, though I love them both. What keeps me here is a mechanic named Pete.
And so you can see why I'm a sucker for mechanic sob stories, particularly ones like the following:
A Roanoke woman named Yvonne isn't just ISO a good car mechanic. She needs a specific fellow named Brad - who is approximately 5 feet 11 inches tall, about 30, with slightly curly blond hair that is short in front and shoulder-length in back.
``He was soft-spoken,'' she says. ``Very polite. Seemed like a real gentleman.''
This, in contrast to the man Brad worked for, Yvonne's former mechanic, who she claims not only sexually harassed and cursed at her, but also failed to fix her car.
I won't go into too much detail here - the courts will make the final decision in this he-said/she-said case. But Yvonne says Brad holds the key to her side of the story, being the only witness to an exchange in which she claims the garage owner threatened her sexually, cursed at her and tried to throw a cinderblock through her car windshield.
``Brad doesn't work there any more, and I've called every service station in town trying to find him,'' she says. She even took out a newspaper ad last week.
If you know of a nice-guy mechanic named Brad who fits the description above, call her at 366-5586. The court case is scheduled for March 11.
Does such a man exist? I'll keep you posted.
In the category of SOMETHING ELSE TO WORRY ABOUT:
A Roanoke woman responded to my recent column on the guest who crashed the bridge-club party - a six-inch long sewer rat - with a story of her own.
``My daughter lives in a $200,000 home in Richmond,'' she began. ``And one day her husband opened the door to their ground-floor bathroom and found a 1 1/2-foot snake curled around the commode.''
She claims the only way the snake could have slithered its way into the john was via the toilet. Her son-in-law beat the snake to death and threw it in the back yard for his wife to see.
``Had I been there, I wouldn't be here today,'' the 83-year-old woman explains. ``I have heart trouble and also a deadly fear of snakes.''
Her daughter, who inherited the snake phobia, never sits on the commode without checking first. ``She's terrified!'' the woman says.
And SPEAKING OF SEWERS:
I have been corresponding with a Hillsville reader named Todd Jennings since the inception of this column in 1992. Jennings is head of Hillsville's sewage-treatment plant and an expert on many topics, including jazz, Dr. Bronner's Soap, Dorothy Parker and euphemistic job titles.
Some of his favorite personal job titles include The Sultan of Sludge, Emperor of Excrement and Duke of Dung. His return-address labels list him as a ``Celebrity in Waiting.''
Todd's a little on the odd side - he takes pride in it - and I've grown fond of his monthly missives, especially his description of the things he runs into on the job.
Grapefruits floating in the sewer make him wax philosophic.
``Occasionally we find a piece of waste that is so weird we all stand around and admire it - one was fluorescent green. We thought we were witnessing a sign.''
Once a customer whose sick husband vomited his upper plate into the can - then mistakenly flushed it - called Todd to see if her husband could get it back. ``He's a better man than I,'' the Emperor reported.
And one of his colleagues claims to have put her daughter through college on the valuables she found in the sewer (flushed wedding bands, etc.).
So you can see how Todd is a continual inspiration to me. His latest idea: to solicit reader response for glamorous PC versions of job titles, such as his very own Monarch of Muck.
A friend of mine who used to review restaurants and theater shows for a Savannah newspaper liked to call herself ``The Cultural Arbiter of the Coastal Empire.'' A dog trainer I know of calls herself a ``pet psychologist''; a pizza delivery man is an ``Epicurean Express.'' And one of my husband's students takes a broader view, referring to himself as a ``Genius at Large.''
So, here's your chance to create the job title of your dreams. Go on, puff yourself up; it'll make the Duke proud. Call me at 981-3435 (leave your name, both your real and imagined job titles, and a daytime phone number in case I have questions). Or write to me at P.O. Box 2491, Roanoke, Va. 24010.
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