Automated Addition

Stelios has been our car mechanic for many years now. He works from a small shack which looks utterly chaotic. But we were first reassured by the impressive line up outside, of the best pedigree in the car world- Porsches, Mercedes, BMWs. Now it is easy to see why. He has a special relationship with cars: he can feel the problem. He can sense an irregular whirr in an engine and slight reluctance of a lever. Cars respond to his touch and reveal all their problems to him.

Stelios will never be short of work but he will never be rich. It is not important enough for him. His garage is like himself, unkempt and disorganised (more than other garages and mechanics) but warm, efficient and with an air of comfortable familiarity. Most of the time he does not even charge for the smaller problems, just walking off dismissively, too busy to think about money.

Sometimes you go to him with a leaky radiator and he will complain that he is only a car electrician and it is not his job. But he will check nevertheless as he cannot bring himself to walk away from any car problem. It is actually sneaky on your part as you already know both the things- that it is not his job and that he will still do it. But it is forgivable as you acted in the best interest of your car.

You can see that the problem irks him till he nails it. He drops everything he is doing to solve it. He will invariably provide the diagnosis and often the cure. If he cannot fix it himself, he will tell you the best place to get it done. His solutions are always the most practical, reasonable and most economical in terms of time, effort and money. My car door would not open from outside and I took it to him expecting to have to replace the whole electronic mechanism. I was out in five minutes with some WD- 40 in the handle and it has never given me a problem since. That is why like most of his customers, I trust him so implicitly that if he tells me that the car is no good now and has to go to a scrap yard, I will do it unquestioningly.

He knows the peculiarities, technicalities and every nut and bolt of every make of car. But if he has to add Euros 110 and Euros 20, he will take out the calculator. When he sees you looking at him, he will say sheepishly, “I did not go to school. I do not know how to add.” And then he will look around the garage lovingly and say, “This was my school.”