Auto Mechanic by Bard of Craig

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I'm planning a trip from Nebraska to Minneapolis next weekend with a friend and want to get my car serviced, so I find a transmission shop and pull up. It's a hot summer day, I've got my shirt off and am feeling pretty good. To my pleasure I find Steve, a big athletic looking guy with a mustache and a beautiful shaved head, just like mine. Originally I asked just for a transmission fluid and filter change but he starts finding other things the car needs. He invites me over to show me various parts and things under the hood that he needs to do, and says he will work on the car through the afternoon if I have time and want to leave it. I do. I come back later in the day and he says he really worked hard to try and get everything done but the engine is hot and he wants to leave it overnight.

By this time he's got his shirt off too and is really sweating so I figure he's worked hard. He seems to know what he's doing. He says he needs to go to a junkyard the next day to find a small part. It is an older car (1982) and new parts for an older car are not always hard to come by. He asks me to come by the next morning at 8 AM.

I show up the next morning and he greets me with a smile and offers me a cigarette. I figure any guy who offers me a smoke can't be all bad. His bald, shaved head really looks good in the morning sunlight coming through the front of the building. He asks me to hang around a while while he works on the vehicle a little more. I have some shaving cream and a razor in my car so i grab it, go into the restroom and give myself a touch up right on the spot - I want to look good for this guy. I come back out and he reaches over with his hand and gives a gentle rub on the top of my head. "Looks good", he says. I tell him his shaved head looks good too, and us bald by choice fraternity brothers gotta stick together.

I go to my job a few block across town and return late in the day and my car repair is finally done. By this time Steve has changed out of his work clothes and is standing there in a pair of cutoffs and shoes and a pair of sunglasses perched atop his head. He says to come back in about ten days for another quick checkup on the car and to see if it needs any parts replaced or anything. Belive me, I'll be there. And if he makes any suggestions like "let's go out for a drink after work" or anything, I'd take him up on it. Us shaved head dudes gotta stick together you know.

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