i got the power!

i like going in Green Mountain Power Equipment. it's reminds me of bob's old Exxon except in mini. repairs on cars shrunken down to repairs on mowers. like the old Exxon there are machines strewn about the place and though it lacks the great big bays and the super-sized air compressor it's still got the feel. a big old fan blowing air around on a hot day. the same cinderblock walls filmed in grease, filmed in grime, filmed in dust. the hand-printed receipts, the dirty cash register, dented file cabinets. all reminiscent of the old Exxon. where bob had Snap-On tool calendars featuring sexy girls hung behind his office door where the public couldn't see them, this guy's got equal opportunity calendar titillation hung by the register. beefy guys in cut-offs and well-rounded chicks in barely-there bikinis, side by side. i like his sense of fairness and his sense of humor. even the guy behind the counter is bob minus 15 years. he's tall and rangy with impressive forearms i like to stare at and the same kind of once-broken nose and sun-bleached blond hair. instead of green garage pants he wears hiking shorts and a tee with the sleeves torn off. not something bob, with his striped Exxon shirts with the script Bob embroidered over the left pocket, would have worn. but to each mechanic his own. i like the smell of the place. it smells like motors and gas. like bob used to smell.

the first time i went in David, the Green Mountain guy, paid me little attention. i was just one of the stream of summer customers with broken mowers. i wore rumpled shorts and a stained tank top, no makeup and my hair disguised in a red bandanna. nothing to look at. i didn't even notice him that much in my lawnmower aggravation. he just grew on me over time. each time i went in i prayed his idiot driver wouldn't wait on me. that guy had stopped over once to re-string my weed wacker. "So," he'd grinned toothlessly through his hairlip, "how long's your husband been dead?" nice. great come-on. "18 months," i said, silently willing the wacker strung already. "Sooooo," he says, all 5'3" and 200+ pounds of him, "time to get back in the dating scene." oh christ. could he possibly think he had a chance? he had the IQ of one of Hugh Hefner's bimbos. am i that bad now that this guy thinks i'm fair game? "no, no," i protested, "not interested in any of that shit." my smile a half sneer, i'm sure of it. i've never been able to control my face.

david, on the other hand, took on greek god proportions over the summer of mechanical breakdowns. he paid me a lot more attention the day i arrived and descended out of bob's giant green Ford F-250 in a summer flowered breezy dress and high heels, curls loose in the wind, workday makeup on my summer tanned face. suddenly the abrupt businessman became a hopeless flirt and i was just as bad, joking that i mowed my lawn in heels to aerate the soil. he rolled his eyes and grinned. lame, i know. but flirting people say stupid things that are only cute to the other flirtee. i found a nice dress and prettier face earned me $20 off the standard cost of the repair for 'water in the gas tank' (a problem i was to have 2 times this past summer). i wondered how much more cleavage might gain me. hell, why not? women get ripped off all the time for the sake of being women. i am not above lowering my bill with cleavage. their weakness should be my power, after all.

so david has now repaired my weed wacker and showed me how to raise the handle and tighten the strap so it's gone from tall bob-size to val-size. i almost thought i'd seriously have to weed wack in heels it was so tall for me. i've got 10 foot tall weeds under the apple tree, a thicket of bamboo. he thinks i exaggerate but i could always send him a bikini-clad photo, "Me With Tall Weed" as proof. and maybe free repairs for the life of the wacker...

that's HOT

TV is rife with shows about tough men these days. "tougher in alaska", "ice road truckers", "deadliest catch". but i'll tell you who the toughest men are, and they'll never get a TV show. they are the men laying and repairing highways in nevada. that's right. even the folks (who are sometimes women) holding the STOP and GO signs near the road work are tougher than crab fishermen or ice road truckers. for one thing, we don't need crabs. so those fishermen are putting their lives at risk for your fancy dinner, not so our country can function. so while it would definitely suck to get swept into the bering sea and it can't be fun working in frigid, icy conditions, they can all put on protective gear, can't they? they can make some attempt to stay semi-bearlably-warm in the wintry conditions. what can road workers in nevada in temperatures over 115 degrees fahrenheit do? they can't work naked, for sure (though frankly i wouldn't mind seeing some of those hard-hatted fellas in the raw). in fact, if anything, they have to wear more clothes to protect them from the sun as they work with steaming, stinking tar in the brutal heat of the day. no siestas for these guys. no flowing arab robes to catch whatever breeze might exist. there isn't a tree in sight to rest under in that vast, fearsome desert. they can't flip a switch for the relief of AC until whatever time they get home that night. and if the desert heat wasn't enough to kill them, there's also you and me and the 18-wheelers motoring by and taking them for granted, if not cursing the traffic inconvenience their work incurs. so while America sits on its ass, enthralled by how 'tougher in alaska' it is, it's even tougher on route 15 outside las vegas. when those ice road truckers take off their parkas and work in the elements without protection, then i'll be impressed.