I had plenty on my mind Friday afternoon when I got ready to leave work. There was the traffic to consider. My upcoming trip. The movie that night. The possible rain.
The one thing that seemed to have left my mind was any sense of three-dimensional geometry. I got into the car, put it in reverse, and mentally did a slow-motion "NOOOOO!!!" a few seconds later when I cut the turn too sharply and scraped into the cement support pole.
I got out of the car and checked the damage. Not pretty. "It's okay," I thought, trying to calm myself down. "I'll just go to Royal and get them to buff it out."
Half an hour later, the idiot girl behind the desk at Royal's body shop gave me the bad news: $627 to repaint the car. "It's not that bad," she drawled.
"What do you mean, it's not that bad?" I exclaimed, resisting the urge to throttle her or say words of which my mother would not approve. "It's bad when you're on a minimum-wage budget!"
"Uh...yeah, I guess."
The man helping her suggested I take Pledge to the car and get the worst of the white marks out. Consequently, when my father pulled into the driveway, I was bending over the car with paper towels and the can of furniture polish, rubbing as well as I could and trying to avoid getting anything on my work clothes. Before then, however, I'd run by Estes, the place where we get our tires, and asked for a recommendation of anyone who could fix my car for under Royal's price. The owner gave me the name and number of his son-in-law, and I left him a message.
Saturday morning, I had resigned myself to forking over the exorbitant fee when the son-in-law called back. I drove out to his place in Pelham, which is so new that the main phone line doesn't work yet. I wasn't sure exactly what I would find, but he launched into his credentials almost immediately.
"When you said 'green Beetle,' I knew exactly what you were talking about," he began, examining the scratches. "Green and red are the two worst colors. Green gets milky, and red fades to pink. You don't notice it, but if you try to repaint it, it's obvious."
"It took Royal three times to get the paint right when they fixed the car after my sister's wreck," I told him.
He nodded, then reassured me he had done Volkswagons, even annoyingly painted ones, before. "I have a formula."
The turnaround was 24 hours. "And the price?" I asked, biting my lip.
He studied the car a moment longer. "$300?"
I could have hugged him. Instead, I took his card and said I'd call him. If all goes according to plan, the car will go in Tuesday night and be back when I return from my trip. Happy day!
No comments:
Post a Comment