There’s a special font that mechanics use to spell out their names on their shirts. It has a cursive flow to it, like an old hand written letter from your grandmother. I kept calling him Jim, because that was the flowing name written above the pocket on the left side of his work shirt. Jim. I must have said it four or five times before he stopped me to tell me that his name wasn’t, in fact, Jim. It was Bill. Jim was the last mechanic at this shop, and he had spent years wearing that shirt. He would change tires, pry off old brake pads and put new ones on, and change oil. He did this for so many years, but he had quit not too long ago because the work had gotten to him.
Not the old work- the brakes and the tires and that sort- but the new work, the drilling and the bolting and the drilling and the bolting. There were warranty companies refusing to honor claims that arose from his work, and so he did what anyone would do. He quit. Bill had been hired that same day, because there was no shortage of work. The company that made the plow blades, one in Wisconsin at first and then many others in other states, kept sending new plows, stacked high on huge semi trucks, load after load, seemingly without end. A load would arrive on a Monday and by Tuesday afternoon they would need more. There were many sizes of these blades, small ones and big ones, but mostly small ones.
The big ones were installed by bigger companies, by big shops on the sides of interstates, where large neon signs advertised the name of the shop and then, usually, in bigger, sometimes cursive letters that matched the shirt name font, “PLOW BLADES“. A few years back this extra appendage wasn’t there, because plow blades were only needed by a select few. Municipalities, plow guys, farmers, those sorts. Now they were needed by everyone, by old ladies and young men and everyone in between. Bill told me that he hadn’t yet put a blade on a car like mine, but that it could be done. It would void my warranty, he said. He said that because he had to, because that was what Jim hadn’t been telling people and that’s what the lawyers told him he had to say. I understood.
I had paid more for that car on account of that warranty. Back before the snow came, there was reason to have it. Brakes would need replacing, engines would need fixing, and that warranty was well worth the price. But now, in this new world, the plow was more important than the warranty, so I told him to go ahead. He said that the blade would look a little funny, but that I’d get used to it after a while. Everyone did. There was some learning to be done, how to drive with the plow down, how to park, and how I needed to avoid tight spaces. He said that in traffic, when everyone had their blades down, there would be some added congestion, as the smaller cars have a hard time pushing the plow and the snow it catches. My car should be fine, he said. It was heavy enough.
In the summer these plows make such a mess. Some orderly types stash them neatly into their garage for that summer month, but this isn’t what usually happens. Most people just leave them to litter their driveways, it’s only a month, they say. When the snow comes in September, they figure they want to be ready. I plan to leave mine behind some trees in my back yard for that month, so that I don’t have to think about the snow for at least a while.
I don’t have a plow on my car. A brief attempt at satire…