ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, February 24, 1997 TAG: 9702250006
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-7 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: MONTY S. LEITCH
SOURCE: MONTY S. LEITCH
ONCE UPON a time, years and years ago, a car left us stranded by the side of the interstate. We sat in the cold a long, long time, listening to desolate clicks and creaks tick under the hood, before a state trooper came along and arranged a tow truck for us.
The next day, The Man of the House called the garage to which our car had been towed and asked for a progress report.
"Well," said the fellow to whom he talked, "this little ol' pin shore off, see, and now you got all these medical particles down in there."
"Medical particles?" The Man of the House needed some clarification.
"Yeah, you know," said the fellow in the garage. "Medical particles. Off of that little metal pin?"
Ah. Mettical particles. Of course.
Cleared of its mettical particles, that car survived a few more years; and we were made to understand that, however limited his vocabulary, that mechanic's knowledge of automobiles far outstripped ours.
Now, just last week, another car has tried to strand me on the interstate. Fortunately, when the red lights started flashing on the dash and the smoke began billowing from under the hood, I was close to an exit; where a kindly filling-station attendant called a kindly (nearby) mechanic, who took me in right away. Within minutes, he came back out, shaking his head.
"Hon," he said, "you're not gonna like this." Then he began outlining for me a scenario involving cracks and coolant leaks and V-6 heads that needed, at the very least, machining.
I nodded at the end of each of his sentences. I hoped I looked intelligent, responsible and wise. I hope I looked, at the very least, tolerant of a strange man calling me "Hon." Even as I wondered what, in the name of plu-perfect goodness, he was talking about.
Finally I said, "I think I should call my husband."
A friend once confided that he thinks his auto mechanic regularly pretends to know more about vehicular problems than he does. "But," said my friend, "I know I don't know squat about cars. I just suspect that he doesn't know."
Every day, in same way or another, we put ourselves in the hands of experts. And every time we do this, we risk putting ourselves at their mercy, too.
It's not just the auto mechanics, either, to whom we entrust our valuables. It's the folks who cut our hair. It's our doctors, and all those unseen people out in the kitchen whom we allow to prepare our food. It's the insurance agents and brokers and bankers; the teachers and court-appointed attorneys. It's the folks who build our roads, and who then keep them scraped in bad weather.
Would you want to drain your own septic tank, even if you could? Or dry-clean all your own suits? But, how do you discern if the folks you pay to accomplish these tasks really know what they're doing?
Hon, you don't. You just have to trust them. And, astoundingly enough, more often than not, your trust is repaid. Generally, everyone tries to do a good job, honestly.
And so, I trust that someday soon my car will be returned to me: newly machined and reheaded, running like a top, cleared of all its coolant leaks and ready to carry me forward through the decade. I trust, too, that MasterCard will see me through this crisis.
Also, I trust that my kindly mechanic will continue calling his female customers "Hon," no matter what anyone says. And so, with these few words in one of the nation's 100 most widely circulated newspapers, I'll just let it drop.
Monty S. Leitch is a Roanoke Times columnist.
LENGTH: Medium: 70 linesby CNB