I had a lunch date with a friend in San Francisco last week at Green’s in Ft. Mason. I hadn’t been there in years, and the entrance to Ft. Mason had been re-engineered, requiring me to find my way to the new entrance. As I ducked through the Safeway parking lot, a fellow in white pick-up pulled up to my passenger side and rolled down his window. I did the same.
“Want me to fix that dent in your door?” he yelled over the sound of traffic. “Sorry,” I answered, “I don’t live in San Francisco, no time today.” “I’ll do it right here,” he added, “right now. Pull over, I’ll explain. My name’s Paul, what’s yours?” His sales patter impressed me; we drove across the street to Ft. Mason.
“I’m here to meet someone for lunch,” I offered, trying to put him off softly. Inside, I’m saying, “this is crazy.” “$480 and it will take an hour,” he says, “I’m a body man. Everything I need is in my in my truck. $450…what do you say?”
I’d gotten a $2,000 estimate to fix the dent, the result of an unplanned get together with a low concrete wall, so I will admit I was intrigued. “When I’m finished all you’ll have to do is paint…this is less than half what you’d have to pay at a shop,” he was now out of his truck running his hands along the passenger door panel. “You have some damage to this back door too, right at the post. You’ll get rust in there. Hard to fix, but I can do it,” his confidence was beginning to work on me.
“You can really get it done in an hour?” I said. He smiled; he knew he had me. “Follow me into the lot, I’ll show where I do the work.” He jumped into his truck and I followed and parked. “Go have lunch. When you’re done come out and we’ll go to the bank.” Hooked like the fish I am, I agreed.
I left him and my car in eye-shot of Green’s, and walked to lunch, talking to myself. “This is totally nuts,” I muttered. “My car might not even be there when I come out. But, sometimes you have to trust people.” I turned back and saw him opening the back of his truck and pulling stuff out. “If this is a scam,” I thought, “this guy’s going to a lot of trouble.”
I had vegetable succotash – corn, peppers and cippolini onions in fresh garden tomato sauce with a side of grilled polenta – and enjoyed my friend’s conversation. In an hour we both had to leave. “I hope my car is not a disaster,” I confessed to her, having told her the story. She smiled.
When I got to my car he was finishing up. “Hey Larry, almost done,” Paul said. He was mixing some pungent blue glop. “Don’t stand too close,” he said, “this stuff is bad to breathe.” I backed away, “Give me ten minutes.” The door looked great: no dent. We went to bank for cash and I paid him. “Thanks, Larry,” he said. “Wait a month before painting. Use some wet/dry sandpaper first.”
I thought about the benefits of our rotten economy as he drove off looking for fresh fish.
