Almost everyday I’m surprised anew as I discover how much of an asshole I really am. This morning was especially enlightening.
I dropped off my car at a garage to get the transmission checked out, since it’s been giving us problems. I didn’t have a ride to get to work from there and I couldn’t get a hold of anybody, so I left my laptop in the trunk and walked to my friend Ben’s house a couple of miles away to hang out there instead of waiting potentially all day at the garage. Ben turned out to be watering his garden. So we talked for a while and then he took me back toward the garage to get my computer out of the car and take me to work. As we turned off his street we saw my car going by. So I said, “Hey, that’s my car. Follow ‘em.” We followed it for a while until it finally pulled into a bank parking lot (about 5 miles from the garage). A mechanic and a boy (apparently his son) got out and walked into the bank. I was a little surprised to see them using my car to run errands, since they didn’t say anything about test driving it back at the shop. But that wasn’t a big deal. I was bothered, however, by the fact that they went into the bank and left the car unlocked with the windows rolled down as they were doing their business. Ben and I went ahead and took my computer and skateboard out of the trunk and went back to his car to leave, all without anyone noticing anything. As we were leaving, we saw someone we knew with some of her friends. We explained the situation to them, and they didn’t think it was right either. So, being the asshole that I am, I couldn’t just let them go back to the shop without doing anything about it. “Aha,” I thought, “I can have a little fun with them.” When they finally got back to the car, I rode my skateboard up and slammed into it. Then I told them I was hurt and I was going to sue them. He just insulted me for running into a parked car. Then I pointed out Ben and the others and said that I had four witnesses who saw him run into me. Then it got more complicated than I had expected. As we were arguing, the security guard finally came out of the air-conditioned bank and told me to get off the property with my skateboard or he would call the cops. Then the mechanic told him that he should call the cops because I was harassing him. So the cops were called. I decided that this was a good point to end the joke, so I said, “I’m just kidding with you, man. This is my car. I was just wondering what you guys were doing over here with it.” This is when I finally realized how naïve I was. The mechanic was very belligerent with me and insisted that it wasn’t my car and that I needed to get away from him. Then I showed him my drop off ticket and expressed my frustration over the fact the skateboard I was holding had come out my trunk without him knowing about it. He just got madder at this point over the fact that he had work to do, and kept angrily insisting that it wasn’t my car. Then I started to feel bad, but at the same time I couldn’t let him leave because I was sure that he knew it really was my car and I didn’t know what he might do to it now that I had pissed him off so bad. So after some more arguing we finally proved that it was my car by calling and talking to someone at the shop. Then I agreed to take them back and drop them off there. It was awkward, but we cleared up the misunderstanding on the way back.
Afterwards (why does it always have to be afterwards?) I realized that the whole problem could’ve been avoided if I had just put myself in the mechanic’s shoes and waited to talk to them about it later. From what he tells me, anytime you take you’re car into a garage, they’re going to take it for a drive. That still doesn’t seem right to me, considering for instance what kind of interaction we might’ve had if someone had really stolen something out of my car without them noticing (how could I prove that it was there in the first place?); but on the other hand, I think there are shady parallels to this in probably every profession. I was definitely the thoughtless jerk in this situation once again.
Still, I’ll always have a hard time trusting mechanics, doctors, etc.
“Trust your mechanic
To plug your holes
Trust him to make more
Somewhere else
Trust your mechanic
He'll always come through
And rip you off”
- Dead Kennedys