Vehicular Emasculation

Robert, my driver, is a complete motor-head.

In the past eleven months, we have had three cars. The first one turned out to be a disaster, from both a vehicle standpoint and a public relations one, as I came to realize that two friends who I had initially trusted were lying their asses off to me and ripping me off completely. Robert got caught in the middle and, thankfully, decided that his loyalty to me and his desire to keep his job was stronger than his desire to keep the peace so he outed my friends and their downright despicable behavior and we moved on.

The next car we got, I had Robert purchase for us. Robert was trained as a mechanic so he knows more about cars than anyone I have ever met. In the first few months of our business relationship, his English was pretty damn bad when it came to most conversation but he could describe the inner workings of an engine like he was reading me Shakespeare. Of course, while I appreciated these sermons in "Mechanics from On High," I thought I only had limited car knowledge so he sometimes just lost me at the start.

Nevertheless, our car was immaculately cared for. Compared to the first piece of junk that the owners ran into the ground, our new car never had a problem. Its oil was changed regularly, its tires rotated, its belts greased and running smoothly...and whatever else you do to a car to keep it in top condition. It never smoked, it never stalled, and it got better fuel mileage than any of my friend's vehicles. The only problem was that Robert was so obsessed with keeping the car in perfect running order, I often had to literally drag him from his repair shop at home to perform his other function as a driver for me.

"Just five more minutes, Madame Boss, just five! I just got new brake fluid that I simply have to try!"

Our new arrangement was working out well too. Robert had purchased the car and I rented it from him directly. This cut out problems like what had occurred with my friends the first time around and it also felt better to be giving Robert the "extra" from the monthly rental fees that didn't go directly to the bank.

Last month, however, I don't think I could have made him happier. We had been using, up to that point, the small Toyota RAV 4 jeeps that are as ubiquitous here as bananas. When I found out I was getting two new staff members, I decided we had to upgrade to a larger vehicle for all of us to fit comfortably, especially on our trips upcountry.

So I told Robert to find us something bigger, and not too much more expensive, to ride around in.

And then I lost him for an entire weekend.

He literally started the search within ten minutes of the words passing my lips and didn't rest until he had secured the proper vehicle. I got annoyed when he failed to turn up for me one Saturday but I know how he is when it comes to cars and I knew, whenever he found the new beast, it would be a damn good vehicle...so I just let it go.

On Monday morning he rolled up in a Toyota Land Cruiser. To my eyes, it looked a bit road-weary and the sooty-looking smoke belching from the exhaust pipe and the squeal of the brakes concerned me but Robert assured me that it would all be fixed by the end of the week.

Of course, that entire week, I had to search for him from roadside mechanic bay to empty field where he and his other motor-head friends had taken to repairing the car but, by the end of the week, the car was in perfect working order. No smoke, no squealing, perfect car.

He regaled me the entire week, in graphic detail, about what he had done to repair the car. I listened patiently and asked questions where I thought they sounded intelligent and actually learned a few things.

So imagine Robert's surprise today when he realized that I actually did know a few tricks myself.

We had stopped at his friend's house on the way back from the store to drop off a wedding present and found his buddy's brother hunched over his car in the garden.

I saw Robert's eyes gleam and thought immediately, "Oh shit, well, there goes the rest of my afternoon. I am going to be watching the Uganda version of Popular Mechanic's Roadshow for the foreseeable future..."

I eventually walked over to see what was causing such consternation and found Robert desperately trying to scrub battery acid and other gunk off of the car's battery casing in the front yard. I watched for a minute and then went back to the car and returned with a warm bottle of Coke that I just bought. I handed it to Robert.

"Here, try that," I instructed.

He looked at me strangely. "You want me to pour Coke over the outside of the battery?" he asked.

Yes, I told him, just try it.

He did, albeit very reluctantly, and we waited for ten minutes before I told him to start scrubbing again.

Miraculously, although sticky, all of the battery acid and grime came right off the casing, with minimal effort.

Robert looked at me like I had been hiding something profound all along...like I had failed to tell him that I was secretly a man or spoke to aliens with my wristwatch or something...

"How did you know that?" he asked when he finally regained his composure.

"I learned it from an ex-boyfriend who had been a mechanic," I told him.

All of a sudden, the other men there all ran to their cars and started loosening the cables that held the batteries in their cars, clearly wanting the same "Coke bath" that I had suggested be performed on Robert's friend's battery.

I saw how this was going to turn out so I insisted that Robert take me home but assured all present that they could keep the liter bottle of warm Coke, free of charge. Robert promised to return as soon as he had dropped me off to continue the battery baptismal ceremonies.

On the drive back, he looked at me sideways and said, "Alright, Madame Boss, what else do you know?"

His tone was still rather put-off, like I really had intentionally hid this Coke-and-battery-acid trick.

"I don't know, Robert, not much. I know how to change a tire, I know how to change the oil on a car, and I was shown a few times how to change a timing belt but I doubt I could do that now...it's been too long," I told him.

"Do you know about pistons?!!" he barked.

"On a car or another type of piston?" I asked, joking.

"On a car!" he clarified.

No, I admitted. I knew what they were and the general vicinity in which they are located but that was about all the knowledge I had.

Then he proceeded to interrogate me for the whole ride home on parts of the engine and what I had or had not changed or handled in my life.

Finally, realizing that his feelings were somehow hurt, I explained,

"Robert, I know how to change a tire and change the oil on a car because my father never wanted me to be stranded on the side of the road at night if I got a flat and I had plenty of boyfriends who would insist that I watch while they did the oil changes on my car when I was in high school and college so I just learned how to do it myself. It is not some conspiracy that I have been hiding from you..."

"And the Coke?!" he asked.

"I told you, a guy showed me that many years ago and I thought it was cool so I remembered it. That's all...that's it!" I insisted.

He still looked uncertain but he dropped it.

About an hour ago, he called to ask if he could come an hour late on Monday morning to pick me up because he wanted to change the motor in one of back windows and didn't have time tomorrow.

I said fine and was about to hang up when he said, "Of course, unless YOU want to do it!"

Then he hung up abruptly.

My neighbor, Geeta, was over at the time and I related the tale. She found it highly amusing.

"Yeah, when Ravi discovered that I could master the grill much better than he could, he decided to become a vegetarian for an entire two months. He was so mad! I had stepped into his domain and demonstrated a skill that he thought only men were capable of performing," she confided.

Then what happened? I asked.

"Oh, he got constipated after awhile--all that fiber, you know-- and that was the end of that," she said. "Now I grill the meat and he grills the vegetables, it took awhile but we worked it out. Robert will be fine."

I hope so.

Despite being fairly feminist in persuasion, I am happy to let Robert be the motor-head.

That way, I can do what I do best, and be the motor-mouth.