willhines.net

I’m in Manhattan, sitting at a “web2zone” cafe, waiting for mechanics at a nearby garage to finish putting new brakes on my car. I have a garage that I love, which reminds of a list I once tried to make of essential services to know of in order to feel in control of your life:

• good auto mechanic
• good doctor, dentist
• good video store
• good music store
• good coffee place

And, until I buy a laptop with a wi-fi card, a good web cafe. I realize that I typed “good” before each item in that list, and that it’s probably understood that I want a “good” one of each of them. But it felt necessary each time. I don’t just need a video store, I need a “good” video store — so good that you can’t even refer to it without saying the word good immediately before.

Anyway, dropping off my car for repairs is stressful for me because I never want to look weak and unknowledgeable in front of the mechanic. I’m a guy, and I’m supposed to understand cars, right? Cars and sports and maybe professional wrestling. Sadly, I do not really know cars, outside of the specific failures my car has experienced before — which is many, but since my car is a genius and is always finding new and never-before-discovered ways to break (alternator, radiator, transmission fluid leak, controller arm, fuel injectors, caliper pins and wires chewed away by rats) — my past knowledge is rarely helpful.

So my brakes need replacing, and I wanted these guys to install the new headlight that I’d bought.

I ask him “Can you guys replace my headlight? I’ve got a new one.”
And he says “You mean, you got a bulb?”

And I stood there for probably 25 seconds, trying to decide in my head if a “bulb” is the same thing as a “headlight.” The thing I bought was a whole headlight — a glass front, with a bulb presumedly inside, all housed in a plastic box. But maybe that’s all just considered the bulb, right? To distinguish it from the metal housing of the car’s frame? OR, maybe the bulb is just the bulb INSIDE the headlight, and maybe I was supposed to just buy that, and I’ve bought too much. That would be like me, to buy unnecessary parts. Still, it seems like what I bought is what’s necessary. But when my rear brake lights went out, I only had to buy a tiny light bulb, not the plastic cover. I’m thinking about it too much, I tell myself. Who thinks about these things so much? This mechanic never would think about this to this degree. He’d know for sure if it was a headlight or a bulb, and he’d be busy planning his next trip to a strip club, or to a Jets game or something.

In the middle of this reverie, the mechanic interrupts me:

“Hey. Hello? DID YOU BUY A BULB?”
“Um. No. I got a whole headlight.”
He blinks at me. “What do you mean, a ‘whole headlight’?”
“You know, I got — the whole thing — the thing with the glass front.”
Long pause from the mechanic. “That’s the bulb.”
“Oh. Oh, okay, yeah. I got a bulb. A headlight. Bulb. I got it.”
“It’s not a glass front. It’s plastic.”
“Yeah. Is it? Okay, yeah.”
“You were really in space there.”
“Yeah.”

The I walk awkwardly away, wishing I could quickly find some wood to split or a baseball trivia test to fill out in order to confirm my manhood.

I have conversations like that with people. And then sometime later they find out something about me like that I program computers for a living and they say “I never knew you were smart.” Maybe I’m not!