She's A BeautyI am very proud of my mother. She took her car for an oil change
by herself. She went to the mechanic where my dad brings all the cars. At the garage, there are two old men who, as far as I can tell, are just mechanic groupies. Their main function is to hang at the garage. Maybe they ring up customers or make the coffee--I don't know. My father refers to one of the men as "Old Man" and the other, who smokes a cigar, as "Decrepit Old Man".
My mother decided to wait at the garage for the oil change, rather than have my brother drop her off home and have her come back again. As she waited, one of the old men sidled up to my mother and said, "Hey Sunshine, how are you doing?"
"Which old man was it?", I interrupted my mother. "Was it the regular Old Man or Decrepit Old Man?"
"How the hell should I know?", she asked, exhaling smoke from her cigarrette.
"Well, if he had a cigar, then he is 'Decrepit Old Man'," I told her. "Otherwise, he is regular Old Man."
"He had a cigar," she stated.
"Then he is decrepit!" I cried.
She then continued her story--
Decrepit Old Man sat next to my mother in the waiting room/office of the garage. "Wow, we don't get many good looking ladies like you around here," he said smoothly.
My mom looked at him. She thought he was joking around.
"I'm sure," she said.
"You are beautiful," he told her.
"Were you a salesman before you worked here?" she asked.
"I don't really work here," he told her.
"So you just hang out here?"
He ignored that question. "What makes you think that I was a salesman?"
"Because you are so smooth," Mom said.
"Well, Sunshine, I wasn't a salesman. I just know a pretty lady when I see one." He paused. "What are you doing tonight?"
My mother looked at him squarely. "No one has found me attractive in quite sometime. After all, I'm almost a senior citizen. Do you have cataracts?"
At that point, the mechanic told her the car was finished. She paid him, gathered her keys and left without another word to the Decrepit Old Man.
"I couldn't believe it," she said to me. "He really thought I was hot. He must be going blind or crazy."
