THE RUDE MECHANICALS
People are starting to talk about my car. "Your car is way old", says my daughter's classmate. "Is it from Tudor times?" They're doing the Tudors in school. "It's only seventeen years old", I say. I admit that my car is not exactly a luxury brand. Frankly, it is a steaming turd of a car. If you stand close enough, you can hear rusting. On the other hand, it is still my car. So I am more than a little offended by the attitude of the mechanic who gives it an MOT last week. "Sorry it took so long", he says, when I pick it up from the garage. "When you brought THAT in, me and Andrew, we were, like, you're having a fucking laugh aint' ya?!" The mechanic leans back in his chair and laughs malevolently, which makes his neck fat jiggle. I laugh too. (Usually, the more offensive and/or the more sexist a comment is, the more I laugh.) This is because I am a pathetic people pleaser. "Bu...