the Dream DC Mechanic

...I'm not going to put his cell phone number on the web, but if either of the two of you who read this blog need an awesome mechanic, do post a note in the comments and I'll send you his info, because this guy Jay needs some serious credit. I never got around to my horror story of the day of my last LSAT class:

I pull up on Mass Ave in Dupont and have to wait until 6:30 to leave my car (rush hour parking rules), so I'm sitting in my car, with the windows down - keep in mind I have a banged up 1999 Miata. All of a sudden in my sideview mirror I see an Old Town Trolley, audacious green and orange, flying down Mass Ave like a bat outta hell. The front of this Trolley narrowly misses my mirror - but the back end of it swings over and boom, mirror gone. This thing must have been doing 50 or 60 mph during rush hour in Dupont Circle. In a freaking trolley. So I see my mirror go and lay on the horn and the guy pulls over up ahead. I get out of the car and he's all apologetic, but offers no explanation for his ludicrous speed ("secure all animals in the zoo...cancel the three-ring circus!"), just hands me the contact info to seek recourse and then he's off to wherever a guy in a humongous trolley could possibly be off to. So I call my mechanic, the illustrious Jay, and after he makes fun of me for getting hit by a trolley says it's no problem to fix. End of story - I go into my class, and the jerk-loser-horrible-teacher who I have hated with intense passion throughout my LSAT clas doesn't show up. Had I seen him on the street, I would have strangled the guy. Then placed him in the path of a runaway trolley.

Seemingly unrelated: Last night, the night before the day I'm going to drop my car off with Supermechanic Jay, the alternator just goes kaput. Outside Dick Cheney's house. Always fun to crawl to a stop and have Secret Service guys, hands on pistols, approach you. They turned out to be very nice and great fun and we all had a laugh about how easy it is to push a Miata around. They give the car a jump and off I go - at this point, I thought it could just be the battery. although that makes no sense because I had it replaced (by Awesomemechanic Jay) four months ago. So, driving driving, on Mass Ave and oops, the lights start to go dim again. I'm on P and Florida or thereabouts (by Restaurant Nora) and boom, battery dies again. A kind cabbie gives the car another jump as I yell at all the people honking at me because I'm in the middle of the street. It dies a third time about three blocks away, on 16th and T. Three cops help me push it into the alley, again laughing about how light it is, and tell me they can't promise it won't be ticketed.

So I call Jay at 10:30 to see if he knows a 24-hour towing place who can get my car to him. He texts back immediately with a number. They refuse to come to DC that night, tell me to call in the AM. Jay calls the next morning at 7:30 to find out what happened. I get the guys to tow it and spend the rest of the day at a conference at the Cosmos Club texting Jay about the many and varied issues my car is having with its lifestyle. He chats up the Trolley people's insurance, gets them to pay for the tow, and I get to drive his loaner Lexus until the car is fixed. Which will be, oh, tomorrow.

The only thing you need in this town is a good hairdresser, a good lawyer, and a good mechanic. After Juan at Aveda and Fantasticmechanic Jay, all I can say is I'm accepting applications for the legal bit.