Fixing a Car
"It's bald robbery, that's what it is!" clucked Sabra Malafide as her gnarled fingers struggled to open the deadbolt on the door to her garage. "I bought this new car barely thirteen months ago, and now it makes funny noises. Right after the warranty expires! I think automakers are in cahoots with the fix-it shops!"
"Yes, Mrs. Malafide, you can't trust anyone," agreed Everett Degage dutifully. His voice had fallen into the yes-man tone he often used with her. "You want help with that door?"
"Listen here --- I may be old, but I'm not helpless!" she snapped. Everett retreated into sullen silence. After thirty seconds that seemed like thirty minutes, she finally jerked the door open and offered him the car keys. "You start it. Listen, and you'll here a rattle in the engine."
Wordlessly Everett got into the car, and his muscles unconsciously relaxed as the soft, plush seat of the luxury car enveloped him. He started the engine. Sure enough, something sounded wrong. He popped open the hood latch and climbed back out of the seat.
"There it is --- do you hear it?" Sabra cried.
"Uh-huh. Let me look under the hood." Everett opened the hood and flinched imperceptibly from the morass of wires, hoses and gadgets that greeted him. "It must take a rocket scientist just to change the spark plugs!" he thought to himself. Everett had tinkered a bit with cars before, but mostly on old, simple models.
"I don't want to line the pockets of the mechanics over at Shay's repair shop," said Sabra. "They're always looking to cheat an old lady. If you can fix it, I save money. Especially since I'm only paying you 50% wages. Remember our arrangement?"
Everett stiffened and nodded without looking up. After accidentally breaking a freon line in her air conditioning system a few weeks before, Sabra had demanded compensation of ten hours of free labor from him. Everett admitted no extra duty to compensate her at all, but he was afraid to lose her lucrative business altogether. After endless wrangling, the two had agreed to compromise on six hours at 50% of the usual wages. Now Everett just wanted to get the whole incident behind him, but he knew better than to let his irritation show. Instead, after a moment's thought, he said, "Mrs. Malafide, this looks like a pretty complicated problem. I think it might be a defective belt, but it's buried deep in the engine. It could take me a while to find out for sure. I'll do my best, but I can't guarantee I can fix it."
"Well, if you can't fix it, then I'll take it to Shay's --- as much as I hate the idea."
Everett didn't want the job to get away. He liked working on cars. Also, if he took his time, the work would not be as strenuous as the mowing and hedge-trimming he did for Sabra. This job offered an easier way to work off what he considered to be an unfair debt. He knitted his brow and said, "I didn't say I couldn't fix it, just that I couldn't guarantee it."
"So how likely is it that you can fix it? I don't want to pay for you to spend forever on it and then tell me you can't do anything. Then I'll have to pay Shay's anyway."
Everett thought for a moment. He really wasn't sure whether he could fix the problem, but depending on what he said, the job was his to take or reject.
- How should Everett respond?
