Winnie & Shirley

Winnie and Shirley are our vehicles. Winnie is a Saturn sedan, and Shirley is a Nissan Pickup, before they started giving them names besides “pickup.” We love them unto the ends of the earth, and it will be hard to say goodbye to them when the time comes. However, I don’t think that time will come soon. My best friend is a mechanic, and since I’m a member of his pack, he does all my labor for free. The reason for this is twofold:

1. Every time Volfe works on my truck, I am right behind him. I’ve learned how to reconnect batteries, how to change brake pads, and how to hold things, including coffee, cigarettes, wrenches, and anything else that will fit as he raises the hood to look underneath. Part of the reason my labor is free is that he’s slowly teaching me to do all of this stuff myself, so I won’t have to come to him forever. I am getting an education worth thousands, and just like Dana did for me when I started cooking, Volfe has taken me under his wing.
2. My relationship with my truck feels different now that I’m actually learning to work on it. I advocate that all people, at least once in their lives, learn to work on their own car. It’s not because it’s a useful skill, although it is. It’s that your perspective changes when you’re doing your own maintenance. It stops being “your vehicle,” and starts being your child or your puppy when you realize how much of your blood, sweat, and tears (great band, am I right?) have actually gone into taking care of him/her. My vehicles are normally boys, because I like boys’ names a tiny bit better, but Shirley just took me by surprise. She was a gift from my father, so I called her Shirley after the Biblical passage “Shirley goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life.” She has never let me down until today, but it wasn’t her fault. She has a bad battery and desperately needs a new one.

However, when Volfe and I get together, sometimes we work on Winnie, too. She’s the first car I ever did the brake pads all by myself, and the parts were only $22… which leads me to my next point. No labor is worth the exorbitant amount that you pay at a dealership for service. You know why? Because the labor rate is set by the body shop, and very little of it goes to the people who ACTUALLY work on your car. For instance, because my dad drives one, I know for sure that the labor rate at Lexus is about $90/hr.

IF YOU ARE POOR, IT’S WORTH IT.

I promise. Go to O’Reilly’s or AutoZone and pick up a Chilton manual for your car. If you are out of money and don’t have the funds for a new one, you might be able to pick up a used manual at Powell’s.

Believe me, if you don’t have money, this sort of thing will change your life. For instance, like I said, the brake pads were only $22 for the set. Things like speaker contacts are like, $6/box. It’s not the parts that are expensive, it’s the labor. And women, you have got to get interested in this stuff, because this is what will save you when you go to the dealership to buy a car. Of course, with new cars, this is not going to be much help. But do yourself a favor and buy a used car. There are many, many used cars in all different price points. The good part comes in when you, as a woman, can look at something and see whether it’s totally f’ed up or not. The sales guy is not expecting you to know that. I promise. So wait until he shows you the vanity mirrors and cupholders and then look at the engine. Then say something like, “how many miles on this truck before the starter usually craps out?” or something equally noxious and watch the car dealers swallow their teeth. God, it is so much fun.

In short, love the hell out of y0ur cars, because I do, and it has been one of the most rewarding things I’ve ever done in my life. Especially as a computer geek, it means the world to me to be able to work with my hands and get out of my head for a while. How many hobbies can you take up like that which will REALLY save you money? I don’t know, but it doesn’t matter.

Do it anyway. Fall in love with your car. Learn his/her personality frontwards and backwards. It’s worth it.

Because you can replace brake pads for $22.