"Beanie, when you’re done with those winter tires, I need you to…" I stopped and looked around the vacant tire bay. "Hey, where’s junior?"
One bay over, Tooner straightened up and jerked his thumb over his shoulder. 
“Just a wild guess, but I’ll bet my monthly tool allowance he’s on the phone again to his girlie friend.” It’s normal for staff to become distracted during the Christmas season, but this was getting ridiculous.
I went over to the extension mounted on the wall and mashed the button marked ‘Speaker Phone.’ Beanie’s pathetic whining came through loud and clear. “Are you sure everything’s okay, Samantha? I mean, I know you say it is, but last night you seemed pretty quiet on the way home from the Community Carol Fest, and…”
I groaned and grabbed the receiver. “Breaker, breaker, this is Johnny Law speaking. BeanMan, you’re busted. Get your butt back out here and finish those tires!”
I could hear Sam laughing on the other end of the line as I hung up the phone. Basil chuckled. “Our young Romeo seems to have some security issues in the relationship department.”
Tooner rummaged through his toolbox for a screwdriver. “Well, keeping short accounts is one thing, but that’s the third time he’s called Sam this morning. It ain’t even coffee break yet!” He found what he wanted and turned back to his job. “Time for some advice from an expert.”
I raised an eyebrow. “And that would be…?”
“Me, of course!” Tooner scowled. “My wife complained once that I never said I loved her anymore. So, I said, ‘Look, I told ya I loved ya when we got married; if I change my mind, I’ll let ya know!’” He checked a hose clamp for tightness. “Ain’t had a complaint since.”
Basil rolled his eyes. “Speaking of complaints, how are you making out with Frank’s coolant leak problem?”
Tooner checked another hose clamp, and then reached for his flexible mirror. “If I hadn’t seen the coolant drips on Frank’s garage floor with my own eyes, I’d be thinking he’s had a little too much holiday eggnog. There ain’t even a hint of a leak!”
I hate it when we get these types of repair issues, the kind where the customer has a problem that we can’t replicate. In Frank’s case, we had checked for coolant leaks at least a half dozen times.
We’d even parked his car in our own shop overnight after a long test drive, just to see if we could make it leak. In the morning our shop floor was as dry as one of Basil’s famous quotations. Yet as soon as Frank takes the car home, the puddles appear once more.
“D’ya think it’s his wife playin’ tricks on him?” asked Tooner.
“If it was you and your wife, I could see it,” surmised Basil. “But I’ve seen the two of them around town; Frank’s a very considerate husband.”
Tooner frowned. “What’s your point?”
At that moment, Beanie slunk back into the shop to finish up his tire change, looking as glum as a turkey in December.
“Beanie,” commented Basil, “there’s an old saying: If you keep poking yourself in the eye, it’s going to hurt. Sometimes we create our own problems.”
He sighed. “I know. It’s just that Samantha is my first girlfriend, and I don’t want her to think I’m insensitive.”
“Oh, I get it,” I said. “You don’t want to turn out like Tooner.”
“Hey! That ain’t funny!” Tooner shook a greasy finger at Beanie. “Listen up, hotshot; it just so happens I know a lot about maintainin’ relationships. Look at this coolant problem of Frank’s, for example. Even though it’s drivin’ me crazy, I don’t take it out on him.” Tooner crossed his arms. “I’ll have you know that I’m very nice to him every time he brings this piece of junk in.”
Beanie shrugged. “Well, maybe you wouldn’t be so forgiving if you knew Frank’s morning routine. He told me yesterday that he goes out to his car first thing every day and removes the rad cap to check the coolant level.” He picked up his air gun. “It’s just a guess, but I’ll bet that’s when some coolant drips out the overflow tube onto the garage floor. I told him he should just check the level in the overflow bottle instead, but he doesn’t trust it.”
When we finally pried Tooner off the ceiling, we called up Frank to explain that constantly opening a closed coolant system isn’t a great idea, and in fact could cause problems down the road. We also gave Beanie some free advice, sort of a litmus test on his relationship with Sam.
“Hi, Samantha,” I said a few days later, as she dropped off a muffler from Herkle’s Auto Parts. “I don’t mean to pry, but how’s Beanie doing in the relationship department? Me and the guys had a little heart-to-heart talk with him the other day.”
Sam groaned. “Well, that explains a thing or two. He promised me he’d lighten up, and he did great – until yesterday.”
“Oh? What happened?”
She opened the door of her truck and climbed in. “He asked what my favorite color of antifreeze was; the green kind you flush out every couple of years, or the red kind that you keep for life.”
She looked at me intently. “He claims somebody told him it was a good way to gauge the depth of a relationship. Any idea where that came from?”
“Gosh, don’t look at me!” I exclaimed, feeling a sudden urge to go answer the phone or something. “I’m not Dr. Phil.”
She laughed. “Well, just so you know, I told Beanie it’s not the color that counts; it’s whether you’ve got the mixture right.” With a wink, she added, “And as far as I’m concerned, we got the mix down pat.”
And then I heard her exclaim, ere she drove out of sight, "Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good-night!””
Rick Cogbill, a freelance writer and former shop owner in Summerland, B.C., has written The Car Side for a variety of trade magazines for the past 14 years. “A Fine Day for a Drive,” his first book based on the characters from this column, is now available for order at thecarside.com.
