Car Pay Diem

$600. That's the total estimate to get the Stratosphere back in working condition. She's intermittently overheating and oozing ounces of coolant in the process. A desert is not the place to have an overheating car; I need to get it fixed.

Oren was pretty cool about the whole thing. I just had a feeling about the place as I drove by. Call it female intuition, or a sign, but I knew this was the place to go. He was high energy, not something you often see in mechanics, and it was obvious he loved running his own shop.

"I don't have $600," I replied, my car still 6 feet in the air.

I want to crawl into a hole as he tells me about "diagnostic fees." He thinks I'm trying to stiff him, or just shopping around for a free diagnostic. Reasonable, given this town. I assure him that I'm sincere about getting the car fixed, I just literally don't have $600. He already knew I just drove across the country, so he pauses at this, and takes me for my word.

As he's typing up the diagnostic report, he asks, "How did you come by my shop?" I told him I follow my intuition, and as I drove by, it made his store shine and that's why I went there. (Hey, it's Vegas, where else is one so justified in following their intuition?) He pauses at this again. I mention that I knew I was in the right place when I saw he was left handed too. (Lefties watch out for each other!) I continued, "After driving by, I looked you up online, got your number, and voila."

"What did you think of the site?"

It's pretty slick, but has some glaring HCI issues. "It's very classy, but doesn't have your hours listed anywhere on it." I didn't tell him about the other errors.

"Oh, now that I'm where I am in the Google ranking, I don't dare change it."

An opportunity?

"But you can edit your page to add your hours; that won't affect your ranking. Trust me," I added, "I used to design and build websites back East."

We talk a bit more about websites, and he tells me that he got his present website by bartering with a woman for repairs who like me, didn't have the money. There it is... that's the intuition seeing the opportunity before I was aware of it. Hallelujah!

So... now I go home and build a few websites (so it looks like he is multiple stores) and hopefully tomorrow he'll look at it all and go, "Wow! That's great! Bring in your car and let's get it fixed!"

(fingers crossed)