A nightclub with waiters and waitresses

Okays, so, we have 10 waiters and 10 waitresses.  At the end of each shift, all tips will be put in a jar and divided evenly amongst the waiters and waitresses, which is also know as “Spreading The Wealth Around.”  This way everyone would receive the exact same amount of a tip.
 
After the first night, the tips were averaged and everyone got a $100.  The waiters and waitresses who worked hard, busing tables, filling water glasses, and checking on their patron were upset at the other waiters and waitresses who kicked back and did not work as hard.

As the second came and went, the waiters and waitresses who did not work hard on the first night, worked even less realizing that they would still get an even split of the tips.  And the waiters and waitresses who worked hard on the first night decided they wanted a free ride, so they worked less.  The second night’s tips fell to $50.  No one was happy.
 
At the end of the third night, the tips dropped to $10.
 
As the nights continued, the tips continued to fall, but the bickering, blame, name-calling, hard feelings, anger, finger-pointing, rose, and eventually no one would work for the benefit of others.
 
The bottom line: when the reward is potentially substantial, the motivation to succeed is great, but when a government takes all the reward away, leveling the playing field, removing the insensitive to succeed, no one will try or want to succeed, and civilization as we know it will crumble.

But then again, this is probably just me, dumb old Billy, being silly, right-wing, and un-presidential.

Okay, so stay with me on this.  If he were a mediocre one-term president, in order for him to be a mediocre two-term president he would have to be elected twice.  Now, if he is elected twice as being a mediocre president, then why would he NOT be elected twice if he were a great one-term president!

Hello!

Maybe what he is saying is that he is a great one-term president in the eyes of the progressives.  And that the rest of us: democrats, republicans, and independants, think he sticks on ice and is killing our country and the future of our children.  So, we vote him out making him a great one-term president.

I guess.

Lord and the 2010 mid-term and the 2012 voting booths help us…

Below is a hint at the types of easy to prepare and healthy recipes you will find on this section of my website.

GARDEN MEDLEY CIABATTA LASAGNA

Serves Six

Ingredients:

One loaf of Garlic Ciabatta, halved lengthwise (open-face style)

Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Two pounds of buffalo Mozzarella, thinly sliced

One Japanese Eggplant, cleaned & cut into six even slices

Three large Portabella Mushrooms, cleaned, de-stemmed & halved

Two Beefsteak Tomatoes, cleaned, and sliced in 12 even pieces

12 ounce jar of Roasted Red Peppers

Garlic Salt

Marinara Sauce

Preparation:

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit

Place Ciabatta halves on a baking sheet, with the cut side up, and drizzle an even coat of EVOO over bread

Begin the ‘lasagna’ layering process on each half of bread: start with the mozzarella, followed by eggplant, another layer of mozzarella, mushrooms, another layer of mozzarella, tomatoes, another layer of mozzarella, roasted red peppers placed equally on each half of bread, and one final layer of mozzarella

Sprinkle garlic salt over each ‘lasagna’ half

Bake for 20 – 25 minutes, or until bread is golden brown and crisp and cheese is melted

Remove and let cool for 5 – 10 minutes

Slice each ‘lasagna’ half into thirds. Serve with a side of marinara sauce

Mangia!  Mangia!  MANGIA!

I TOTALLY DISAGREE WITH THESE MOMS AND DADS!  LET THEM SEE AND LISTEN TO IT!

No, relax, I have not been fooling around with my home lobotomy kit!  I am still a glenn-beck-tea-party-libertarian!

HOWEVER, look, anyone (a.ka. Obama) who would allow the likes of self-admitted communist Van Jones into the White House as “Czar,” which is a euphemistic work meaning: “getting around the senatorial comforation vetting process designed to find out that HE IS a communists,” is obvious a “domestic enemy,” and also a “foregin enemy,” because he has NOT disclosed to U.S. his birth certificate!

I WONDER WHY!

BUT, DO NOT pull your kids out of class.  DO NOT get them a “hall pass” so they do not have to listen to this “domestic enemy, and also a “foregin enemy,” because he has NOT disclosed to U.S. his birth certificate!

I WONDER WHY!”

DO NOT allow your children to stick their head (ostrich-like) into the ground.  Rather, encourage your children to sit quietly and watch and listen to this “domestic enemy,” and also a “foregin enemy,” because he has NOT disclosed to U.S. his birth certificate!

I WONDER WHY!

Take good notes.  Learn from this federal government foe.   Understand him/them, for this is the ONLY way we can fight and defeat this “domestic enemy,” and also a “foregin enemy,” because he has NOT disclosed to U.S. his birth certificate!

I WONDER WHY!

Vote: Bill Drury/Sarah Palin for President/Vice President—2012.

From: Mike C
Date: 09/02/09 05:29:45
To: Drury1234@myfairpoint.net
Subject: Message From A Reader
 
Send your “platform speech” to every American. I don’t find it humorous…..I find it exactly what the next President should implement!!!  I’m passing it on to all my conservative friends/family.You are a true American. Best wishes for your “campaign”…..from a Vietnam Vet!!

My daughter, Sara, was also major-league messy.  And you can tell exactly what she had been eating by simply performing an off-the-cuff inventory of the stains currently existing on her shirt.

“Okay, Sara, let’s see; you had tacos, lemon squares, hot pockets, and an apple.”

“Daddy, don’t forget this.”  (Point)

“Oh, look, double-stuffed Oreos.”

Fortunately our dog at the time “Taffy,” who before the kids arrived did not have an actual identifiable paying job unless, of course, you consider lying around and doing absolutely nothing ALL DAY LONG as an actual identifiable paying job.  But after the kids showed up she began contributing to her keep by following behind the toddlers carrying a spatula and a plate tidying up their tidbits.  And on some occassions whenever food hit the floor she’d swoop in like a barking hairy vulture and inhale the scraps, sometimes devouring sections of the hardwood floor at the same time.

However, the kids were not the only ones in the house who were untidy.  I had and still have a tendency to pile up my empty beer cans until you need a backhoe and a coal-minor’s cap to dig your way through from the living room into the kitchen.  And as you might well imagine, my can-collecting-custom bothered and STILL bothers my wife, because she is one of those annoying neat people who are always busy cleaning something.  And when she finishes cleaning something (e.g. the septic tank) it becomes so sterile you could store someone’s organs in it.

So whenever she complains about my continuous can clutter, I assure her I will toss them into the garbage, that is, “when I get around to it,” which according to her can take centuries.  But as far as I am concerned, cleaning and picking stuff up is a question of timing: Man Timing Versus Woman Timing.

EXAMPLE

Woman Timing:

A woman’s dumb timing tells her that a little detected dust in the den means it is time to vacuum the entire house, to include the surrounding neighborhood.

Man Timing:

BUT manly man timing tells us men that the little detected dust in the den means to wait until it forms into dust bunnies which are roughly the size of tumbleweed, and which eventually sprout legs, crawl out from under the furniture, and hold the entire family as hostage.

So, anyway, pull up a mop and bucket and join me next time where I will tell about how my wife and her woman timing forces her to scrub the tub after EVERY time she uses it.  Scrub the tub AFTER using it! Ha!  You took a shower, right?  When you take a shower you use water, right?  You used soap during your shower, right?  And water + soap = clean, right?  So why bother with any extra scrubbing?

Silly woman.

Sure, some soap scum does have a nasty tendancy to accumulate.  And like during my college days, if you let it go for more than a semister, it will eventually overtake the entire male dormatory.  BUT soap scum is a product of water + soap, so it MUST be totally clean, right?

Silly woman.

AaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!

ONLY KIDDING!  Not really.  But, seriously, it’s the perfume department at Macy’s.

“Gee Bill, like the perfume department at Macy’s is the most dangerous location ever invented.  Yeah, right, try listening to and understanding Massachusettes Marble-Mouth Mayor Maneno or Sissy Sluring Senior Senator Barney Frank, now those are treacherous situations, because if you are standing too closel, you could get violently spittled on.  I mean, seriously.  What are you thinking, Bill, you BIG silly, you.”

Look, it’s not the perfume department per se, which I think is a fancy French word meaning “all French perfume smells like Neapolitan’s armpit,” it’s the wacky women working in the perfume department who make it so positively precarious, specifically the sinister spray-happy perfume peddlers who are scurrying all over the place like crazed cockroaches after the lights go on, and whose cologne commission is based solely on how many innocent customers they could waylay and whitewash their wet weapons.

And if you don’t think a man trying to run the fragrance gauntlet and make it out of the perfume department un-perfumed isn’t as treacherous as being a passenger in a senior senators sedan, well, then you either have the IQ of a drunken bureaucrat, or you’re like a guy I know who enjoys pedicures, powdering his nose, and prancing around in drop-seat pajamas with feet in them.

So anyway, I was standing in the woman’s department at Macy’s encouraging my wife to “pick something, already!  You’ve been trying on the same (nasty word) dress since BEFORE the invention of fig leafs!”

That’s when it happened: first I felt it, and then I smelt it: (sniff) perfume, on me, a man?  How the?  What the?  When the?  Where the?  Why the?  Who the?

My initial olfactory response was that some deranged perfume fairy was flying overhead peeing on people, specifically me.  Come to find out, a deranged incontinent perfume fairy would have been a pleasant surprise compared to the actual truth. The actual truth was that I had inadvertently made my way into the outer boundary of the woman’s department, which was just inside the inner perimeter of the perfume department, placing me in dangerous perfume-spray-radius-range.

And one of the spray-happy clerks took full spraying advantage of my unplanned territorial trespass by squirting me on the side of the head several thousand times with what felt to be a fire hose, only with slightly more water pressure, all under the guise of wanting me to get a good stiff whiff of it, and then perhaps, if I wasn’t asphyxiated, purchase some of her perfume product for my wife, or girlfriend, or maybe for the guy referenced above in the ornate nightgown.

As if my scent situation wasn’t bad enough, I soon found myself surrounded—in a sharklike feeding-frenzy—by other spray-happy itchy-fingered atomizer-slinging perfume clerks all in direct competition with each other to soak patrons, and all currently with their spray nozzle crosshairs pointed in my direction.

And every time I covered my head and tried to escape, they would start squirting like crazy, and I would get flooded with fragrance.  It was just like the opening scene from “Indiana Jones And The Raiders Of The Lost Ark” when Harrison Ford, after getting the golden idle and trying to escape, stepped on the rocks and arrows started shooting out from the wall.  The resulting fragrance fog was so thick you needed a portable lighthouse to feel your way from aisle to aisle.  One minute I smelled like a man, and the next, like lily of the valley.

After a few minutes the fragrance females finally finished because their fingers were fatigued.  But they did not go far, and like stealthy cologne commandos armed with semi-automatic atomizers, they hid behind their counters, leaped out, and sprayed everything that walked by: a man, a woman, a refrigerator; if it moved, it got sprayed.

Realizing the severity of my perfuming predicament, I knew that I had to make it back into the safety of the woman’s department, and fast, or I risked being drummed out of my poker club given that the collecting cologne on my clothes would overpower their stinky sulfur smelling cigar smoke, and no self-respecting poker player would stand for that.  However, before I could reach the safety of the woman’s department, I first had to make it past this one remaining perfume princess who was standing smack dab in the middle of the odor obstacle course.

But this cologne clerk was different.  I could tell by the look in her eyes she was determined to make a sale, and if it meant drowning me during her perfume pitch process, so be it.   And lemme tell ya, this woman was packing: she had two industrial-strength spray bottles, one in each hand.  So as I, the sodbuster approached, she drew her six-shooters and began blaring both barrels.

There was a massive mist of musk, but I luckily I made it out alive, dripping wet, and trailing a visible skunky scent al la  Pepe le Pue, but I was alive, I stunk to high heaven but I was alive, nonetheless.

So anyway, join me next time where I will tell you about the time I accidentally wander into the lingerie department at Kohl’s.  But this voyage didn’t turn out as bad, because, well, as every man will admit, lingerie beats perfume any day.  (Wink)

Copyright 2009 Bll Drury.  All Rights Reserved.

What’s worse, I’m more confused than ever, if you can believe that.  And doing the simplest things like trying to figure out if Ted Kennedy would make a good lifeguard or how to order fast food fast has become a whole perilous process.  And that is why, when it comes to ordering fast food, I’ve implemented my Neanderthal point-and-grunt ordering technique, whereby I drag my knuckles up to the counter, point at a picture of a sandwich, grunt, get my food, and eat it.  This procedure is so easy a caveman or Bill Drury could do it.

This is unlike my wife’s meal gathering method, because she not only can remember what goes on a every sandwich, she can modify her meals, and by telling the person taking her order to “hold this, not so much of that, and put the patties on the side,” she is able to take a Double Whopper with cheese and transform it into a plain fish sandwich.  The woman is haunted.  She’s an alchemist extraordinaire who could teach Merlin the Magician a few “look,-nothing-up-my-sleeve” presto-chango pranks.

Look, I admit it, I don’t know from “special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, and onions on a sesame seed bun.”  So I continue to point-and-grunt like an Australopithecus, which is fancy fast food talk for “pick your knuckles up off the ground and stand up straight!  You’re giving us orangutans a bad name!”

Sadly, my point-and-grunt primitive practice does not always pan out.  Take last month for instance when I was in south Philadelphia doing some stand-up.  In-between sets I decided to grab some grub, and when in south Philly, much like when in Rome, you do as the south Phillies do: you take a gondola ride and get yourself a pizza.  ONLY KIDDING!  You get yourself a “Pat’s” cheesesteak sub.

At “Pat’s” they expect you (get this) to order in a specific way—their specific way.  Ha!  And if you do not follow their strict ordering regime they will kick your butt to the curb, and they do not care if you plead or grovel, as evidenced by the fact that fannies were flying left and right to the back of the line.  And if you don’t order correctly, for all they care you can starve to death on the sidewalk.  Trust me; these guys were so serious they made the ‘Seinfeld Soup Nazi’ look like a delicate dictator by comparison.

I did not want to starve on the street.  All I wanted was a stupid cheesesteak sub.  But in order to get one I had to first master this vendor vernacular.  And from what I could muster, it all had something to do wit the words and phrases “whiz-wit,” which I think stood for “a cheesesteak with onions, peppers, mushrooms, and you can’t forget about the cheese-whiz, hence the word “whiz,” or “whiz,” which I think stood for “plain cheesesteak with cheese whiz,” or “whiz-wit-out,” which I think stood for “a cheesesteak without onions, but you kept the peppers, mushrooms, and of course cheese whiz.”

BUT I could not be sure what was what with all that “whizzing” and “witting” going on.  And short of swapping my brain with that of a donkey, moving my IQ up two points, I would never be able to get the whole “whiz-wit” thing down in time to place my order.  So I did the only thing I could do: cheat by way of scribbling “whiz-wit-out” on the palm of my hand.  And then I studied my order using the same level of intensity normally associated with one parent pretending like they do not hear the crying baby, and instead continue to fake like they are asleep so the other parent, who is also pretending like they do not hear the crying baby, and who is also continuing to fake like they are sleeping, will have to get up and administer the 2 o’clock feeding.  And both parents must concentrate real hard, because the first one who twitches is assigned the responsibility to climb out of the nice warm bed and feed the nuisance never-sleeping newborn.

Anyway, I hadn’t studied that hard since my SATs, but I’m glad I did, because before I knew it I was at the front of the line, and it was my turn to order.  I gulped a mighty gulp and stepped up to the window only to come face-to-face with a guy wearing a stone-face chiseled from granite, only slightly stonier.  Instinctively I wanted to scream and run away, but instead I blurted out: “WHIZ-WIT-OUT!”

The good news was I had passed the test, and was told to “pay up, step aside, don’t move, and wait for my order.”  The bad news was even after all that studying, I had no idea what I just ordered.  I could have requested a frog skin, maggot, and marshmallow manicotti.  But luckily, instead, I had correctly requested a large cheesesteak without onions, but with peppers, mushrooms, and of course, cheese whiz, which tasted out of this world.

Well, anyway, I have to go.  My witchcraft wife just turned a Wendy’s single with cheese into a hotdog.  Now if I can only get her to turn that hotdog into a winning Power Ball lottery ticket.  Just imagine the prestidigitation possibilities.

Copyright 2009 Billy Drury.  All Rights Reserved.

To most people, the mere thought of eating a “fish stomach” would turn their stomach with the same level of spinning normally associated with that of a hamster laced with sugar and caffeine and thus vigorously running around and around in its miniature rodent treadmill wheel thingy.

But there are others out there like, for instance, The Travel Channel’s “Gag Me With A Spoon Gourmet,” Andrew Zimmern, host of “Bizarre Foods” who lives for this kind of gross-me-out groceries.  Note: “Bizarre Foods” as defined here as food so foul not even bacteria will eat it. In fact, microorganisms have been known to hold their little noses, and in high pitched tones, as if they were all just inhaling helium, say “ick,” and scurry away.  But, according to Andrew, if you have ever dined on Thai food, which comes swimming in Thai fish sauce, like it or not, there is a 3,000% chance that you ate a fish’s stomach, because the main ingredient in Thai fish sauce is, yup, you guessed it: automobile parts.  JUST JOKING!  No, seriously, it’s fish stomachs.

Generally speaking, folks don’t spend too much time wearing about eating fish guts, that is, until they suddenly realize that at one point in their lives, say, back in 1978, during a college fraternity pledging hell week, that after drinking enough beer to fill Vice President Joe Biden’s left-wing empty skull (relax liberals, they don’t brew that much beer—ha) all the thank-you-sir-may-I-have-another pledges came down with a wicked case of the munchies, and subsequently called in Thai food take out.  When the order arrived to the frat house, not only was it swimming in Thai fish sauce, but several hundred tubs were provided as complimentary condiment, by which I mean the Thai restaurant owner was desperate to get rid of the stuff, and so he figured what better group to pawn this crap off on than a drunken gaggle of toga-wearing college students.  And the pledges, mistaking the Thai fish sauce for stale beer (to be honest, at one point in the night they mistook liquid hand soup for beer and everyone was burping bubbles) quickly made up a drinking game, and all the pledges glug, glug, glugged it down.

As you might have already guessed, I was one of those pledges—BURP—there goes another bubble.  And I did glug down my fair share of Thai fish sauce—about three quarts worth, which if you do the math equates to approximately 9 fish stomachs.  So, today, just having realized what I drank back then, my humorist response, much like the sentiments delivered from our friendly bacteria buddies, would be to say “ick,” because “ick” is not only bacteria speak expressing microbial disgust, it is also an abbreviation normally used by humorists when they find out that some 30 odd years earlier they drank approximately 9 fish stomachs.  And so “ick” roughly translated from humorist speak into non-humorist speak means:

“YOU’VE GOT TO BE (NASTY WORD) KIDDING ME!  A FISH’S STOMACH!   WHAT THE, YOU HAVE TO BE, I MEAN SERIOUSLY!  WHY DOESN’T ANYONE TELL ME ABOUT FISH GUTS BEFORE I ATE THAI FOOD!  THIS WAS NOT ON THE MENU; NOT EVEN IN FINE PRINT.  NO MENTION WHATSOEVER ABOUT FISH’S STOMACH!   NOT ONE STINKIN’ FISH’S STOMACH WORD.  OH, SURE THEY OPENLY MENTIONED FISH, BUT NOTHING ABOUT FISH’S STOMACH!  YOU’D THINK THIS MINOR MENU MORSEL WOULD REQUIRE SOME LEVEL OF MENTIONING TO THE GENERAL PUBLIC, RIGHT?  EVIDENTLY, WRONG!  NOT A SYLLABLE!  AAAAAAAAHHHHH!   SPIT!  SPIT!  SPIT!  WHO’S GOT THE STOMACH PUMP?  I NEED IT NOW, RIGHT NOW, RIGHT THIS VERY MINUTE!  I HAVE TO PUMP THE FISH STOMACH OUT OF MY STOMACH!  WHA!  WHA!  WHA!  MOMMY MAKE IT STOP!”

But my point in this week’s column is not about consuming fish stomachs; it’s about, well, I forgot what my point is about because I keep thinking about CONSUMING FISH STOMACHS!  Oh, I remember: my point is that during office staff meetings, my seat assignment is RIGHT next to the office suck-up who, in every staff meeting, whenever the boss asks a question, has to quickly raise his hand and begin violently waving and thrashing his hands around as if trying to fight off a swam of killer bees.   And he grunts: “OOO, OOO, OOO!” As if to say “Pick Me!”

With his hand in the air all the time and the accompanying “OOOOing,” the boss is permanently fixated on him, and thus on me, too.  So I have to sit there and pretend to be awake, alert, paying attention, taking copious notes, and overall eagerly interested in whatever it is the boss is babbling about—when I am so NOT.

What really frosts my codpiece is that all of my other co-workers don’t have to pay attention—none, zip, zilch, nada.   Nope, they are out of the line of sight and out of the boss’s crosshairs.  However, old dingle berry and I are on center stage with the spotlight shining brightly overhead.  And my co-workers can sit back, relax, and begin perfecting that head bobbing thing, wherein first their eyes start to close, then their mouths open, then their heads start to fall backwards, they suddenly awake, jerk their heads forward, and begin all over again.  This can be seen going on throughout the entire meeting, all around the room.  And if Scottie had beamed you down to the earth’s surface, and if you walked into this meeting, you would swear you had stumbled upon a secret organization practicing to become human Pez dispensers.

Anyway, that’s it for this week.  Join me again next time where I will discuss how, just yesterday, I stopped at a gas station, handed the clerk $15.00 for pump number #2.  Then it took me 40 seconds to pump $14.65 worth of gas into my tank.  This sounds like a reasonable amount of time.  BUT at the $14.65 level, the pumping mechanism slowed way down to a trickle, as if the hose had suddenly developed an enlarged prostrate.  And then it took me more time to pump in the remaining $.35 cents than it would take for President Obama to form an intelligent coherent non-scripted non-teleprompter non-um-um-um-containing unrehearsed response to an off-the-cuff question posed by, say, a right-winger like yours truly.

EXAMPLE

Date Line: Wednesday, April 8, 2009.  President Obama is about to hold a press conference to talk about housing.

Me: “President Obama.  What are you going to do about those Somali pirates who boarded a US vassal, kidnapped the captain, actually he volunteered to go to save his shipmates, and now the pirates are holding a gun to his head?”

President Obama: “Guys, Guys, Guys; we are here to talk about housing.”

There is still hope for us, my fellow good Americans, because remember I am running for president in 2012.  Go to the campaign section of my website and vote for me.  Below are but a few of my planned cabinet appointees:

-       Vice President Who Comes Complete With A Functioning Brain And The Ability To Construct And Articulate Actual Sentences: Rush Limbaugh

-       Department Of State And A Damn Fine Looking Woman If I Do Say So: Secretary Sara Palin

-       Department Of No One Screws With The US Defense: Secretary Newt Gingrich

-       Department Of The Low Taxes, Controlled Spending, Zero Borrowing, And Limited printing of money Treasury: Secretary Donald Trump

-       Department Of Don’t Come Across Our Boarders Unless We First Ask You Or You Will Be Returned In A Pine Box Homeland Security: Secretary Ted Nugent

-       Department Of Ripping Liberals New A-Holes And Looking Really Good While Doing It: Secretary Ann Coulter

-       Department Of Plain Good Old Commons Sense: Secretary Glenn Beck

-       Department Of NO Spin And Of Justice: Secretary Bill O’Reilly

-       White House Razor Sharp Tongue Bring It ON Be-ooo-tch Spokesperson: Jay Severin

Copyright © 2009 Bill Drury.  All Rights Reserved.

NOTE: Removing and replacing the drivetrain is a relatively straight forward procedure.  But changing an air freshener can be tricky business, because if you are NOT careful you will touch said air freshener with your bare skin, and you will then smell like pine for upwards of six months, which will drive the local squirrel community nutty.  And the squirrels will then begin wildly chasing you around in a frantic effort to be the first to stash their nuts into any of a number of your anatomical orifices, one in particular—because this is a family newspaper and all I will not get too much into detail here other than to say it might result in some level of discomfort for you, especially if you attempt to sit down.

Anyway, fixing your car by yourself is pretty much impossible nowadays because you need a PhD in Applied Automotive Design just to be able to figure out how to open the hood.  And this is because some corporate automotive CEO suit, who has been bullied by EVERYONE since being a fetus, and who hates EVERYONE, and who wants to get back at EVERYONE, has done so by putting escaped Nazi war criminals in charge of designing automobiles and writing user’s manual; user’s manuals which are so thick Godzilla could not rip one in half even with the help of a chainsaw; user’s manuals which are so criminally complicated it’s virtually impossible to figure out how to fix a fuse.

EXAMPLE

The user’s manual “fix-a-fuse” instructions state:  “In order to snake your way around all the other engine-equipment clutter and reach the fuse box—Ha!  Good Luck!—you must be a certified circus contortionist, have twenty-eight-inch long fingers, be related to Henry Ford, own an auto body shop, and have the know-how to disassemble an entire vehicle, including the paintjob.”

So, whenever we have mechanical problems we are forced to deal with automotive mechanics.  And your standard mechanics are a nasty lot who are in cahoots with the Nazis, and who have the nasty Nazi habit of ALWAYS giving the car-owners the worse-case scenarios about their broken automobiles.

EXAMPLE

“You think it’s just a rattle.  But it isn’t.  Basically, everything in your car is broken, including your Christmas tree air freshener.  And it will take at least six hundred weeks to get the parts to fix your car, that is, if I can locate the parts, which I don’t think I can.  But if I do, the amount to fix your car will be slightly more expensive than what it costs to keep the Federal Government supplied in enough red tape to allow them to bog down every piece of important legislation, to include banning low-fat potato chips.  But that’s only my over-inflated estimate, so don’t quote me, because it’s going to cost you much, much more.”

I know what I’m talking about; we just bought a new mini van, and after buying it I drove it 19-feet across the street to a gas station to top off the tank, because dealers ONLY give you enough gas so you can drive out of their sight and out of their mind, and I found myself engaged in a conversation with the mechanic.

“Sir, I know it’s none of my business but it sounds like you need a new engine. “

“A new engine?”

“And a transmission, electrical system, and a new Christmas tree air freshener.”

“The mini van is brand spanking new.  I just bought eight seconds ago from that dealer right across the street.” (Point)

When a mechanic realizes he’s about to lose a sale, they will begin to introduce guilt by mentioning the safety factor of your family and tossing out potential dangers that can result due to your obvious Scrooge-like cheapness.

“Well, if that was my vehicle I would not be driving my family around in that hunk of junk, especially if I had kids.  Do you have children?”

“Yeah, I have kids.”

“You do realize your entire brake system is about to explode?”

“Explode?  I’ve used the brakes once, to stop in here for some gas.”

“Hey, listen; you do what you want to do. But if your brakes fail, well, who am I to say anything?  After all, it isn’t my family’s lives that are in jeopardy.”

I’m sick of cars and even sicker of mechanics, but unfortunately I need both.

Well, I’m running late for my ninth guilt brake overhaul of the week, which according to my mechanic, who’s in the process of purchasing a new mansion, complete with a moat, “you can never be too safe, and don’t put a price on your family’s safety, well, at least not until my mansion’s mortgage has been paid off.”

Copyright 2009 William E. Drury Jr.,  All Rights Reserved.