h a l f b a k e r yThis ain't rocket surgery.
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Taking your car to the garage can be an intimidating experience. Garage mechanics do have a habit of using jargon that for many people has little meaning.
You deliver your cherished, poorly motor into to their dimly-lit sanctuary, where, wearing their liturgical vestments of grease-encrusted overalls,
they carry out curious rituals, muttering about carburettors, tappets and ECUs, and after much umming and aah-ing, pronounce your car healed, and relieve you of 200 quid.
People feel distrustful of all the technical stuff they don't understand, leading to an overall sense of uneasiness. I propose a solution - a High-priest Mechanic Service, which, while fixing the mechanical problem with your car, provides a comforting spiritual explaination of the problem, and carries out a ceremonial healing of the offending cause, tailored to your own spiritual preference.
You could choose the Catholic version (robes, incense, candles and confessional..."Say 3 Hail Marys and 1 Our Father each morning before starting up - that'll be 200 quid"), The Voodoo version ("Aaah, your carburettor is possessed by an evil spirit...trance, chicken sacrifice, 200 quid), The New Age version ("I sense that the energy channels between the distributor and the spark plugs are blocked...crystals, tarot reading, 200 quid plus new HT leads), or any spiritual belief of your choice.
Ultimately the actual cause is resolved but in addition, you get that warm reassurance that your vehicle is healed as well as fixed.
Reminds me of...
PC_20Witchdoctor
shameless elf-promotion [RayfordSteele, Aug 03 2006]
[link]
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I heard from a friend that travelled to Indonesia, that they have some kind of car temples like this. I always thought it sounded cool, so~ holy bun for you. |
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Thanks Xandram - I owe this idea in part to my brother - one drunken night we thought it up, and giggled till morning... |
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Then split the bun with him, as I cannot give another one. |
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...breaks the bread, lifts it up to heaven and says "take this bread and eat it..." |
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...or the homeopathic version: "The fact that your car isn't working is of course an externalised symptom of something much more fundamental. If I charge you £200 and slightly loosen one of your wheel nuts that ought to cure it." |
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The only time I ever went to a homeopathist he asked me loads of strange questions, mostly around my sleeping habits, (ie do you sleep with your pants on or off? your feet in or out of the bed?) not sure how you could quiz a car on its resting habits though.... (hhmmm)
anyway I digress, Kudos for the High priest mechanical Service, though surely it would be a CARdinal sin not to choose the catholic option??? [+] |
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In ancient issues of the fabled 2000AD, there was a series called Nemesis the Warlock, in which a Horse-faced alien (Nemesis) battled the evil forces of the Terran empire, ruled as a fanatical religious regime post some holocaust or other by the withered hand of one Torquemada. |
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These forces of Earth had access to a whole host of post apocalyptic equipment, but only knew how it worked due to religious texts being hand copied and passed on through the generations by a brotherhood of 'techno-monks'. These ancient texts would read along the lines of - "Pusheth in simultaneous rapture, the holy trinity of buttons so marked 'Ctrl', 'Alt' and 'Delete'. In this way shall you find the path to Logoff." Or at least they might have done if the machines weren't great hulking death-bots intent on the eradication of life-forms deemed 'heretical' by evil Lord Torquemada. |
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Guy walks in to a zen car shop. |
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What's wrong with your car? |
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Movement is only relative to your dreams, The space-time continuum doesn't even exist, here sit down and have a cup of tea. |
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What? That's it? I have to go to work tomorrow, are you crazy? |
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Yes and no, you sit down and have a cup of tea, I'll call a mechanic and we can all relax. |
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While I was Indonesia, I caught a quick glimpse of what certainly looked like a priest blessing a motorcycle, or maybe he was healing it. Here in the Missouri Ozarks, I've encountered a number of "shade-tree" mechanics who recommended some very odd cures for my car. |
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I just want a priest to threaten the mechanics with eternal damnation if they lie to me about what is wrong. |
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There used to be an idea about priests fixing cars, but I can't find it now. Not exactly like what is here, though. |
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//threaten the mechanics ...if they lie to me about what is wrong.// Too bad there isn't a lie detector hooked up to your battery.
Um just a min -- uh, Jim. Can I hook these up to your fingers before you tell me what's wrong? |
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Well, the first thing that's going to have to be replaced is the altern ---KAR Zaap! -- I mean the wiring connection just needs to be cleaned off and re-attached. Man does that smart! (lucky for him it wasn't all the way charged). |
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//...or the homeopathic version...// |
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I don't know why that struck my funnybone so hard but damn, [hippo], your comment made me spit chai all over my keyboard, I laughed so hard. I've probably gone and overdosed my computer on essense of chai- thanks a lot! |
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As for all of the anger toward mechanics, why can't we just believe that they are doing what's best for us and our cars? If this idea were implemented then I guess we could trust them like we do our priest, right? |
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I think most would bring their car in for the treatment of hypocondria. "I hope you can help, Dr. Karr! The 'check engine' light has been on for months, but I know there's nothing wrong!" "Right then, your car's a hypocondriac! Here's what we'll do: we're going to disconnect the battery and then reconnect it several hours later. It's a placebo, see, we make the car think it's been worked on, but it acutally hasn't! That'll be 200 quid." |
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...The reflexology version: your car's problem is caused by inefficient flow of it's essential fluids. By applying pressure to specific reflex zones on the tyres, I will stimulate the corresponding part and cause it to begin healing itself. |
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The lawyer's version:
That'll be two hundred quid. |
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reminds me of the techpriests in warhammer 40k |
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Is the current method the equivalent of atheism, or just one of the religions that comes under the "other" tick box? |
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