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Friday, October 26, 2007

New Look

“You’re not going to believe this,” the young woman informed me breathlessly, jogging inside the front entrance of my shop.

Oh lady, if you only knew the Twilight Zone of what I’m capable of believing, you probably wouldn’t be standing inside my shop. While dressed neatly enough in jeans and sweater top, I’m getting a bad vibe as to what might seem so unbelievable to this woman. She will assume the secret identity of Suzan Surprise for the remainder of this short journey into the unknown. I immediately decide to shelve my usual greeting of ‘Can I help you?’, and adopt my interested look with furrowed brow. Picture Spock on Star Trek just before he says ‘Fascinating’.

“My Buick’s right outside your shop,” Ms. Surprise said, gesturing at me to follow her.

Okay, I’m game. I follow her out and get a look at her ninety something Buick. I stand corrected. Someone had neatly removed her front and rear windshields. I don’t mean broke them out. I mean removed them as if the Buick had been in a glass shop. I felt like ‘Dexter’ when they called him to the scene last season of dismembered bloodless body parts.

“And they didn’t even steal anything,” Suzan informs me.

“Ah… yea, they did,” I dispute her summary of events quietly, while walking around the vehicle, which had been converted into a four wheel wind tunnel. I walk over to her after my examination. “You’re right, I haven’t seen this before; but I’ll get you a business card for Glass On The Move. They will actually make house-calls, but it might be better if you go to their shop so they can see this.”

Ms. Surprise follows me into the office, and I give her a business card for the glass shop.

“It’s really weird driving the car like this… and everyone looks at me when I come to a stop,” Suzan enlightens me.

I’ll bet they do.

“I’m sorry I can’t do anything for you here,” I say instead.

“Thanks for the referral. At least it’s not too far away.”

I go out and watch Suzan drive away, hair blowing in the wind. I hope whoever gets the stolen windshields never gets them sealed properly; and they leak forever… the jerk.

4 comments:

Jordan Summers said...

I can honestly say that I've never heard of someone stealing windshields. Of course, last night was the brightest full moon of the year, so there you have it. ;)

BernardL said...

Maybe you're right, Jordan, I forgot about the full moon. :) This was weird in a mechanical way too; because it's not easy to remove a windshield in one piece after it's been riding around on a car for ten years, without it cracking around the edges.

Erica Ridley said...

I didn't even know that was *possible*. Wow.

BernardL said...

It's nearly impossible without breaking something as the windshield is separated from where it is mounted, Erica. It may have been someone playing a prank on the lady, because a pro could buy new glass for less than the time it would have taken to take the old stuff out without breaking or cracking it. It was a first for me, and I've been working in shops for thirty-four years.