Vignette #3 (362 hits)
Category: NoneRating: -1.77 on 10 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by John Kim (View user info) at 2008-09-24 18:14:26 EDT
Jen pulled the 93 Mercury Grand Marquis into the garage, turned the engine off, and pulled the hood release lever. She caught a glimpse of her face in the rear view mirror and saw that a few strands of hair had come loose from her pony tail and now spilled casually on her face and shoulders. She pushed a few of the errant blonde tendrils behind one ear and realized that Troy was watching her the whole time. Feeling a little self conscious she walked around to the front of the car, lifted the hood, and set the lift support arm into place. Troy, who went back to working on the 02 Nissan Frontier in the other lot, encouraged her to pick up the conversation where she left off.
"Okay, so you said Piper and Tiffany left but you stayed behind a little longer?"
"They were tired and so they left but I still had some dance left in me," she explained while fighting to get access to the exhaust gas recirculation valve.
Troy smiled and said, "I thought you girls were supposed to look out for each other. To make sure no one gets too drunk and then taken advantage of."
"Oh I wasn't that drunk," said Jen, opening the driver's side door to the Mercury and switching the engine back on.
"Okay, so then what happened?" Jen went back to the front of the car, applied a vacuum to the EGR valve, and waited to see if the engine would die.
"So anyways, right after they left the guy comes back over and starts trying to dance with me again." The Mercury's engine sputtered then died. It was clear that something was clogging up the EGR system. Jen would have to take it apart to find out what the problem was.
Troy laughed, "I don't believe it. So then what'd you do?"
Jen shrugged, "I danced with him for a while. He kept grinding up against me. Then he invited me back to his place." She followed the path of the EGR valve and located the intermediate pipe. Jen made an eyeball guess as to the bolt sizes then walked over to the shared tool bench. Troy had the Frontier up on the lift and was getting the impact gun ready. Jen picked out the socket she thought would fit and put it on the socket wrench. The loud dull roar of the air compressor followed by the machine gun sound of the impact wrench Troy was using to take the front tires off the Frontier temporarily made conversation impossible.
During the break in conversation Jen walked back to the Mercury she was working on, verified that the socket she had chosen fit the bolts to the EGR intermediate pipe, and then walked back to the work bench to tape the socket to the wrench itself. It was an old mechanic's trick she had learned a long time ago. It was so easy to accidentally have the socket pop off the wrench and get lost in the lower intake manifold. Then she'd have to spend the next four hours tearing everything apart just to get her socket piece back. By the time she finished taping the socket to the wrench Troy had both front tires removed and the air compressor had finished its compression cycle.
"So did you go?" Troy asked eagerly.
"Yeah," said Jen with a shrug. "I mean, I wasn't tired and I didn't have anything better to do."
"So then what happened," Troy asked. He was hanging on every detail now and only half paying attention to his task of removing the brake pads from the pickup truck.
"We talked for a bit. It got to be late. I told him I wanted to go home but it was clear he wanted to get some first." Jen removed the intermediate pipe and took it out. She looked through it, then rubbed her finger on the inside and saw the black carbon build up on her finger tip. It was definitely dirty but it wasn't clogged enough to kill the engine when the EGR valve was applied to a vacuum. She was smiling now, enjoying telling the story to Troy. If felt like bragging. Like she was showing him how adventurous and together she was.
"So I told him okay, you're fucking me, and then you're taking me back to my car," Jen said, delivering it like it was a punch line.
Troy was silent. He avoided making eye contact and instead kept his eyes on his work. The silence nurtured a building tension that hung in the air like a warm haze on a summer afternoon.
"So you just gave it up to him then?" he asked, finally. His tone of voice was now colder.
"Yeah," said Jen, not quite willing to give up yet. She was still sure she could win him over. "But don't you think I handled that right? I mean, I got straight to the point. I knew what he wanted. I didn't care one way or another. So I gave him what he wanted, and then he took me back to my car. No one had to say things that weren't true, and no one had to pretend to be someone they weren't. There was no messing around, and no games."
Troy didn't respond for a while. He was busy fighting to get one of the new brake pads into the truck. Sometimes they fit so poorly that it made you wonder if either the computer gave you the wrong model number for the pads, or if you'd pulled the wrong one on accident. But he eventually seemed to get the left side pad to line up correctly.
"The thing is," he said, after several long moments, "what happens to the next girl now?" Jen had just started scrubbing out the port where the intermediate pipe connected to the lower exhaust manifold. There was a lot of build up so she had the Shop Vac ready to suck up any big chunks before they fell any deeper into the EGR system. She turned on the Shop Vac to give her a few more moments to ponder Troy's question. She scrubbed the port with a solvent treated wire brush, and the sharp stink of the alcohol substance pervaded her nostrils. By the time she finished she had come no closer to understanding where Troy was going with his question. Setting the brush on the battery she turned to Troy.
"What do you mean?" she asked.
"Okay, so the next girl that this guy brings over to his place he'll be even more aggressive about getting into bed. And you've just shown him how easy it is. So maybe this next girl isn't like you and actually cares one way or another. Or maybe what you did makes this guy a little too aggressive next time. How did you make things better for anyone?"
"Oh fuck off," Jen blurted, immediately and reflexively defensive. "I did not turn him into some sort of rapist. And I'm comfortable with the choice I made," she said, pointing at herself for emphasis. "They are my choices. I can't be held responsible for every other chick that puts herself into a situation that she doesn't want to be in." She could tell she was angry now, but she also couldn't stop. "You're just pissed because I'm out having a good time while Janet is too nauseous with morning sickness for you to get some."
The instant the words came out of her mouth she knew she was out of line. Troy sneered at her in anger, threw the wrench he was holding across the shop where it tinkled against the hard concrete floor like a jingle bell, then stormed out of the garage. Jen reminded herself that she was angry too. She reached in her back pocket, remembered that she was out of cigarettes, then fished her keys out of her front pocket and headed to her car. She needed some smokes.
User Reviews
Submitted by beeltea (user info) at 2008-09-25 11:50:42 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
hey shithead, when you have no frame of reference as to what a post is about, don't rate it.
kthksbye
Submitted by Doodles (user info) at 2008-09-25 09:05:33 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
It must suck to be you.
Submitted by sandmantate (user info) at 2008-09-25 08:57:03 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
Do some research on cars dick.
Do you know what an EGR valve is? It doesn't have an "intermediary pipe" Also, it's not even connected to the engine most times, and even when they are, if you drop a socket down the intake taking one off, then you are a magical fucking retard. There is no 'lower intake', if you drop something down the intake, it will fall onto the plenum, and can be retrieved in 10 minutes with hand tools or 30 seconds with a magnet. Also, if you kept the air cleaner on the intake, then you wouldn't be able to drop anything down there, unless, of course, you are a magical fucking retard. You don't take an EGR valve off with a socket. The proper name is EGR valve; it's an electric valve that monitors your exhaust gas and will route it back through the engine if if has a high oxygen level- which prolongs the life of your catalytic converter. Sockets are attached to RATCHETS not WRENCHES. A wrench is a stand alone sized tool that is used to remove bolts and nuts. A ratchet is a handled tool with a ratcheting head desigend to attach to a sized socket and remove nuts and bolts. Taping a socket is not a mechanics trick. Get a tabbed ratchet, and your sockets will never fall off. Taping a ratchet destroys the whole purpose of the ratchet and won't let it turn.
Submitted by HurtByTheSun (user info) at 2008-09-25 05:13:59 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
Gay with extra gay.
Submitted by EmissionImpossible (user info) at 2008-09-25 04:53:07 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
seriously use better names, troy???janet??
what the fuck?? has battlestar galactia collided with with a childs book
Submitted by Nellypaal (user info) at 2008-09-25 04:40:05 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
Lots of detail about the innner workings of a car does not make for interesting reading.
Submitted by scourge (user info) at 2008-09-24 20:09:55 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
didn't read it
Submitted by Shlongy (user info) at 2008-09-24 18:38:28 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
Zero posts a day, for you.
Submitted by locksly (user info) at 2008-09-24 18:37:41 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
Submitted by sandmantate (user info) at 2008-09-24 18:29:01 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
One post a day.
___________
No gay posts allowed.
Submitted by sandmantate (user info) at 2008-09-24 18:29:01 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
One post a day.