Remembering Amalie

I was riffling through some computer files when I ran across the following. It is from the talk I gave at her Celebration of Life. Alison, you may remember this:

Amalie and I thought in similar fashion so that at times we could finish each others sentences. There was one instance that was almost comical. By the year 2000 we were both using lightweight scooters. One day, a few years later, one of the scooters needed repair, so we drove to the scooter store. As I pulled up, I saw Jay, the repairman, along with two gentlemen in suits, out on the sidewalk, surrounded by several new scooters. “Hey, Don,” Jay called to me, “come try the new lightweights.” So I climbed out of the car, and drove a new scooter down the sidewalk and back. “Hey, Am,” I called, “come try this.” So she did. While she was scootering down the sidewalk and back, one of the “suits”, a salesman for the manufacturer, was giving me a sales pitch. He was still talking when Am pulled up. She looked at me; I looked at her and gave a little nod; she gave a little nod back. The salesman was still yammering away when I said, “We’ll take two.”

Fun time:

I would guess that many of you have heard of Tom and Ray Magliozzi, otherwise known as Click and Clack. For those of you who have not, they are humorous auto mechanics (and consultants, I suppose) whom I’ve heard on NPR radio, and who have a weekly auto column that appears in our local paper. People call in (on radio) or write in (newspaper) with automotive questions which they answer along with funny side comments. The newspaper column this past week had a rather unusual question: “If a mechanic is not wearing a wedding ring, is that a true indication of his marital status? I think my mechanic is hot, but I’m wondering if he doesn’t wear a ring because working on cars would destroy it. ... I am concerned that if he he took me up on a date offer, but found he didn’t really like me, I’d be out an awesome mechanic. ... Should I go out on a limb and risk losing both my pride and my great mechanic?”

Tom and Ray both said she should take the risk, and then went on to explain why married auto mechanics take off their wedding rings for safety purposes.

Their advice? “So, you need a different way to determine whether your hot mechanic is available. ... Tell him you’ve been hearing a little creaking noise when you go over speed bumps. Tell him its been worrying you. And when he reassures you that it’s nothing serious, just a creaky bushing or something, say ‘So you’d feel safe letting your wife drive this car?’ And if he says, ‘Well, I don’t have a wife’, then you say, ‘OK, would you feel safe letting your girlfriend drive this car?’ And if he says, ‘I don’t have a girlfriend,’ you say, ‘Want one?’ ”

See you all on Monday. I'm taking tomorrow off while a friend and I go to a concert and dinner.