Stealing broadband

For those of us who have taken on the burden of adulthood, one of the chores that most of us have as boring, dyed-in-the-wool responsible men - apart from the interminable bills - is servicing the car. The few lucky buggers around the world with excellent public transportation should count their blessings since there's nothing quite as frustrating as getting the car serviced since it involves careful, precise planning ( taking the day off and such ), excellent coordination ( between the harassed mechanic and yourself ) and plenty of dull hours catching up with outdated magazines.

Despite Charming Calvin's enthusiastic praise for the seemingly efficient train service, I have my suspicions. In most developing Asian capitals, the public transportation still needs more than a little ... tweaking ( if not a desperate overhaul ) - and till that happens, speeding around in a personal vehicle seems to be the easier option. And while it does raise my stress levels some ( raising the terrifying spectre of early hypertension ), it does give me some alone time to think.

Still that doesn't make servicing any easier. Bringing the car in for servicing certainly marks another adult milestone since I can easily recall my dad catering to such dull chores when I was a kid.

Over in the mechanics' workshop, one would reasonably expect studly, gorgeous specimens of manhood, all stubbly, sweaty and liberally painted with grease, dressed in only painted-on jeans that has seen better days. Usually offering a free oil check and engine tune-up - while tugging on his burgeoning gearshift.


Could you fiddle around with my gearshift?
Obviously most of those steamy apprentice mechanics have been hired by the gay porn studios since what we find in the workshop is usually far from palatable. What we get instead is a portly uncle with belly overflowing his straining pants leering as he runs his fingers over the car hood and talks about engine thingamajigs. While scratching his rapidly thinning head, the mechanic would be rattling on about the mileage and the oil usage and I'd be nodding away semi-knowledgeably while my curious gaze runs over the workshop searching futilely for a greasy Chris Evans lookalike hopefully stashed away somewhere under the hood. No such luck however. Somehow or rather in the midst of such overwhelming testosterone and grit, any trace of feather boa swishiness seems to melt away leaving a grunting neanderthal in place and even my voice drops an unbelievable octave when I mumble rubbish about horsepower and pumping pistons.

Then I look up again and I see the uncle with an oil-stained finger up his nose. Which is how I usually end up with the outdated magazines mentioned above.

Then I realized that I needed to write up some reports for work and brought out my laptop only to find the wireless LAN blinking away. Hell, who'd ever guess that the isolated workshop acually received wifi - God knows from where. Life's certainly full of surprises and I spent the time tapping away at the keyboard - writing this post - vaguely imagining the uncle drooling over porn sites in between fiddling with carburetors.

...***...

You know what! I take it all back. I'd marry the old portly uncle, fuck the belly.

Hell, he practically left me penniless selling medical prescriptions by the highway. For the amount of money he just made off me - and of course for changing my tyres - I might as well just bend over and let him have it all. :) Might as well marry him. Then of course I'd slowly poison him with my knowledge of pharmacology, take over his shop and hire studly young apprentices to man the shop.