Beech Tree News Network

I’ve always said we keep young people onboard at New Image Car Care because they’re so good with technology and Garey, Greg and I are so bad at it.  On countless occasions, I’ve handed one of the young guys my phone with directives like: Make it stop going to screen saver every fifteen seconds or make the print bigger so I can read my texts or make that annoying voice shut up—I don’t want her to help me.  It’s like having my own personal Geek Squad. 

 More important than tech support, however, is the bonus of limitless entertainment they supply.  We currently employ two automotive-tech students, Briar and Logan, part-time, and one former tech student, Trevor, full-time.  They love to jerk me around, especially when I’m filling out the check list for an oil change.  “Tire pressure is forty-one and a half,” they might yell, or “this one’s a three-wheel drive,” or “there’s something you need to put in the notes—the head lights are pretty.”  

Logan, realizing early on that I startle easily, is constantly sneaking up on me and scaring me to no end.  I’ve told him if I have a heart attack, I will hunt him down after I get out of the hospital.  He just laughs.

The three are constantly challenging each other to do burn outs in our parking lot or to eat dog treats from the bag I keep on top of the coke machine or to test the ice on the massive mud puddles in the gravel lot next door.  They’re always insulting each other with names like “little girl” or “wuss” or “big baby,” and several others I can’t repeat here.  Their latest thing is changing each others names in the employee menu.  I laugh when I look at the screen and see: THE Trevor Dockery or Logan Filipé Richardson or Briar Gomez Gates.

Briar and Logan are currently in a heated battle to see who can learn the most about the cashier station first.   (Trevor already knows how to manoeuver around in that area.)  When we have new students, I try to teach them everything I can in order to make them more marketable when they leave us.  These two have taken to it like a duck to water.

One day, when I taught Briar how to do a Quick Sale, Logan came bounding through the office door a few minutes later demanding to know what I had taught Briar that I hadn’t taught him.  Another time, when all three of the guys were in the office, Briar was learning how to do a Fleet Charge, when Logan looked at Trevor and said, “Our little boy is growing up.”  Briar responded with, “Shut up, Logan!”

When business is slow at our shop, the three spend time watching videos on their phones.  Mostly, the videos have to do with stupid people doing stupid stuff or stupid people blowing things up.  They are all big fans of blowing things up.  If they’re not watching things get blown up, they’re searching for truck parts.  They say things like, “That’s a good deal for those wheels” or “That guy’s an idiot if he thinks he’s gonna get that for those tires.”  Logan laments the fact that his addiction is truck parts, not drugs.  “A drug habit would be so much cheaper,” he says.

I smile to myself when they make some change to a vehicle in order to attract attention then get the windows tinted so dark that you can’t see who’s behind the wheel.  The dichotomy of the teenage mind, I remember.   I too went in several directions before settling on one.  I’m just glad they landed here for a little while.  They make me laugh, they put things into perspective and they remind me that the only thing that is permanent is change.