Now I'm not a young man anymore, I'm in my early 70's as is my wife. Medical issues have messed up my wife's sex life in the past couple of years but after nearly 50 years together, friendship and love binds us together. I've always been mechanically inclined and shortly after I retired, I inherited some money and build myself a nice shop where I could tinker on cars and do some welding and other projects to keep myself busy. It seems my kids and their friends almost always needed something done.
My son-in-law, Thomas (pronounced Toe-Mass, he's Hispanic) was a royal pain because he thought he could fix things and almost always made it worse. Once my daughter's car was miss firing and he could smell the rotten egg smell coming from the catalytic converter so he drilled a bunch of holes in it. Then the car would barely get out of the driveway. It took her an hour to drive the two miles to work. She called me and I brought my trailer, loaded up the car, and took her home then put her car on my lift and put a new catalytic converter on it as well as doing a tune-up, oil change, and a brake job. I then took it down and had 4 new tires put on it and had it aligned. She had the cord showing on three of her tires. Kids, ugh!
Anyway, one day, Thomas calls and asks if Maria could bring her car over for me to look at. Her husband had taken it to California, supposedly to look for work and now the car drove terrible. Maria and Carlos are my daughter Lora, and Thomas's best friends, at least they're always talking about going over to their place to go swimming or parties. Now I had never met Maria but my wife has at our youngest grandson's birthday party. I was sick and didn't want anyone else to get it.
My wife told me they have a son, Juan, in college on the coast learning to be a surgical nurse, a daughter, Cynthia, in college not far from here learning to be a physician's assistant, and their youngest daughter, Emilia or Em, just started at our local college to be a commercial interior designer.
I told my son-in-law to have her bring it over. He said it might be her daughter Em and I said fine. I was working on my old Plymouth when I hear this car pulling into the driveway and the sound of metal on metal of the brakes didn't bode well. Then a loud clunking noise as it came to a stop told me it really needed work. I headed out and this very beautiful young lady gets out of the car. Her long black hair in a ponytail cascaded down her back, almost to her waist. She was wearing a pair of shorts and 2" heels and a crop top showing off her pierced navel, flat stomach, and a nice rack. If I had to guess, I'd say 38 C or D. I thought, man, her daughter is fine. I'd better behave myself.
As I stepped forward, wiping off my hand she said, "You are the Pa, they're always talking about that can fix anything?"
I blushed a bit and said, "Well, not everything but quite a lot. I take it you're Em?"
She laughed. "I'm Maria. Em's mother and Carlos's wife. You know me, you see me all the time."
I looked at this vision of loveliness and said, "If I had ever seen you before, I'm sure I would have recognized you. You're hard to forget." She smiled and looked around my shop. Then she spied a rack I built to hold my hats, coats, and vests near the man door. She walks over to it, throws on a vest, then a Four Corners Co-Op baseball cap, tucking her hair under the cap. She walks back to me and says, "May I help you sir? What are you looking for today? More of those 3/8" bolts you got last week?"
I gasp, I then realized that I had seen her hundreds of times but she was always wearing bulky jeans, a plaid shirt, a denim vest, and Four Corner's Co-Op baseball cap. I shook my head and said, "You were hiding that under that camouflage.
My jaw dropped, I said, "It can't be. What, did you have your first at what, 10? You can't be over 32 or 34 years old."
Maria pulled herself quickly to me and kissed me on the lips and said, "Flattery will get you everywhere with me, mister! I'm 45." as she pressed her firm tits to my chest.
I swallowed hard, not knowing what to say. I stammered a bit then asked her about her car and she told me that she and Carlos weren't getting along as Carlos had lost his job in April when this pandemic hit. Then it dawned on me and I asked, "Should I be wearing a mask?"
She smiled and said, "Well, I just kissed you so the damage is done, isn't it?" I nodded and asked for her car keys. She went on, "His cousin told him he could get him a job at the trucking company in Southern California where he works so Carlos went down there and applied, only they required a drug test and Carlos smokes pot and they don't allow that. His cousin was hired before they required the test. He was so pissed he went for a long drive out in the desert for several days and now my car is like this. Do you think it can be fixed? I really can't afford a new one. I just got this one paid off. Please can you help me? I took it to the dealer where I bought it and they said it would run around $3500 and I can't afford that."
I told her to go in and get a sweet tea from Linda and she gave me a half-smile. I put a towel across her seat and drove it into my lift and raised the car. The front brake pads and rotors were shot, as were the half-shafts. Both control arms were bent and the struts were both leaking. It looked like he had tried to run the Baja 500 in this poor little SUV. I pulled the back tires to check the brakes and they were filled with dust. The rotors were glazed a bit, but the pads needed replacing. I made a list of parts and went into the house where Maria and Linda were chatting away. I went to the den and I called my buddy, Gary, at the auto parts store where I have an account and had him price everything out. I then checked my computer and used eBay and priced things there. The staff at the parts store I get is all made here, that's why I use them. The parts store was $657.70 and eBay was a little over $480.
I went in to see Maria and putting down a towel before I sat down, as I've been in trouble enough before to know better, I asked, "Tell me, Maria, are you planning on keeping the car or are you going to sell it?"
"Why?" she asked.
"Well," I said, "If you're going to keep it, I want to use good parts in it. If you plan on selling it, I can save you a couple of hundred bucks though we will have to wait a week for some of them to get here. The good parts I should have here by tomorrow."
Now Maria was in tears. "I would like to keep the car. I really like it. How much are the good parts?" she stated.
"Sweetheart," I told her, "Don't worry about that right now. I know Carlos hasn't been working and with three kids in college, I imagine money is tight. We can try to work something out. Maybe Carlos can come over and help me around here?"