The Day I Held The Pep Boys Manager Hostage In My Car

About eight years ago I was pregnant with Alexander and Jane was two. I was 30 years old, caring for a toddler, basically a happy woman, but I could smell everything. My heightened sense of smell left me a little grumbly.

I had a Ford Explorer at the time, and it needed some sort of a hose. I brought the car in to Pep Boys then sat down and waited an hour or so. They let me know my car was ready, I paid and then I got into my car.

It stank.
My car smelled like sweaty car guy. I don’t know how to explain it other than that. It was a hot day in The Valley and the sun had warmed my car so it smelled like a an overripe mechanic. Hot body odor and grease. I was nauseous, tired and grumpy.

I complained to the service technician. In retrospect, I suppose it doesn’t go over very well when you complain to a man that they smell horrible. He went to have a look at the car, gave a look and then basically told me to get lost. He couldn’t smell anything.

Dissatisfied, I sulked towards my car, all the windows were up (I’d previously left them down). I was ticked off that they’d closed the windows on the car again and then furious when I opened the car door and realized that the mechanic had farted in my car and then sealed it shut.

My car smelled like his asshole.

Fuming, I got the store manager, refused to speak to him and told him I needed him to sit in my car. The man looked positively baffled, but I was at least six months pregnant, and furious. He wisely did not argue.

I unlocked the car and asked the manager to get in it. He complied, and as he sat in the driver’s seat I locked the doors with my key fob. Let him sit in the fart, I thought.

The store manager made gagging motions from the driver’s seat begging me to open the car door, jiggling the handle and finally pounding on the glass, I stood next to him, in the fresh air, laughing and clicking button. I knew that as he wiggled it was only warming up, perhaps getting humid and the smell would only magnify. Periodically he would relent and just sit there, his hands on the steering wheel at 10 and 2 o’clock. Although my shoulders would relax, my thumb was alert, as he moved to the handle, I’d click the door locked. We played cat and mouse for a good five minutes, his hands would make a move, and with my thumb I’d trap him.

When his face finally turned red, and the poor dear looked ready to faint, I relented and allowed him to escape the car. He got out of the driver’s seat, silently opened all the doors and the hatch and disappeared into the store screaming, “Which motherfucker farted in the lady’s car?!”

My money was returned to me and I left Pep Boys thinking, “TKO for the lady, round two.”

Tagged as: auto, Ford Explorer, Jessica Gottlieb, Pep Boys