Car Mechanics for the Naive

Given the tricks he used to play on his girlfriends, it is a wonder John Barge ever got married. I called him after I left the hospital after Elise's surgery. "Glad it went well," he told me. He also told me that one of his sons, a strapping dark-haired man in his late teens, recently played the same trick on his girlfriend that he had once played on a girlfriend long ago. "It's scary how much my sons imitate me," he sighed. "But I can see why, I guess. It was pretty interesting when I was trying to get rid of a girlfriend who just wouldn't go away. That's why I did it. It wasn't nice, but I was desperate. We were driving together and I don't know what came over me. It was late fall and I said to this girl Bridget, "Hey, winter's coming. Have you changed the air in your tires?" Bridget was a little gullible and very clueless about cars. She said, "No, should I?" I told her she should. "Once winter's here, you don't want that summer air in your tires.

"Later she called me. She was furious about having gone to a mechanic and requested that he change her air. It caused quite a stir at National Tire and Battery. All I could think of at the ripe old age of nineteen was that I should also have told her that her muffler bearings needed tightening."