Trust your mechanic

My car took a dump last month.\nI was driving around town, delivering sandwiches to sleepy undergraduates and foreign students who pretend to not understand the concept of tipping, when I ran over a curb. \nThat's actually the truncated version of the story. In reality, I've run over about a dozen curbs in the last month. \nMy car responded to my irresponsibility. It would list to the right when you weren't guiding the steering with your hands, and it would shake violently when you went over 40. I had thrown my alignment off, and God knows what else, but hey; it still worked, and I was avoiding the inevitable. Then, some sort of grinding noise started up, and I finally bit the bullet.\nTime to go to a mechanic.\nI hate getting my car fixed. I hate it. There's a feeling of total helplessness that comes along with the experience that I can't shake -- the guy could say anything and all I can do is nod because it's obvious to everyone involved that he could be talking, in French, about what he had for lunch and I'd understand about as much.\nHere, I'll set the stage. After dropping my car off at the garage, I'll get a call from the mechanic to come back in. They'll have checked it out and they've got an estimate. Let's listen in ...\nBespectacled, rich-kid college student with a fancy automobile (me): So, what's up with the car?\nGrubby, heavy-set man wearing coveralls and a Tony Stewart hat: Well, uh, we had to rework the struts on the carburetor and replace a brake pad. Also, had to lube the nuts on the tranny. You really needed that last part.\nRich-kid college student: (giggles for about 10 seconds) So what am I looking at?\nCoveralls: $740.\nRich-kid college student: Wow. If I'm paying that much, can we at least spoon afterwards?\nI've considered enrolling in automotive schools, usually after a visit to the car shop, just so I could understand what was being said to me during these little altercations. \nThe mechanic's position might not be a unique one in our society -- everything takes special training, and there are languages for every vocation that none but its members will ever understand -- but his is the one most ripe for metaphor. We allow him under our hoods, into our engines, where he can conceivably do anything he wants. \nHe could give us the finest of service each time we come in with a problem, or he could set little time bombs that make sure we come back to him, to drop more on car parts we can't even name. I don't know for sure. Maybe there's an international cabal of grease monkeys working to suck me dry. Maybe not.\nWhat is for sure, though, is that an amazing amount of trust is required each time we go to the mechanic. We believe, wholeheartedly, that he's doing us a necessary service. In reality, he's a necessary evil, part of the nasty world of consumerism that has spending our paychecks on things we've convinced ourselves we need. \nTime to break free. I'm getting a bike.