Lab #1

Testing vacuum, testing compression, leak down testing, engine removal.

These were the instructions for our first set of labs. Anyone with the slightest modicum of knowledge about cars would categorize these things as easy ways to begin learning about cars and their function. However, this was the a.m. class of a morning and afternoon series. Translation: anyone not actually working in a garage was present in the a.m. and those getting off of work at a garage arrived in the p.m.
Further translation: no one knows what the hell they are doing in the a.m.

As we subdivided into groups, signed for and gathered tools from a somewhat secure cage where these items were loaned out and then, much later, tucked into waistbands and sequestered, the labs began. How a groups of completely inept students can be put to work with sharp tools on explosive objects so quickly was a mystery. Although Brad had at some point in his rambling lecture mentioned the importance of safety glasses, they went from eyes to foreheads to shelf within an hour. Stripped of protective gear, each group began pulling on fuel lines that wormed through engine compartments in vain efforts to disable start-ups.

In my group was a slightly more astute individual, John, who had some experience with cars. This would be to our benefit as the other members, one dread-locked guy who had as an end-goal the dream of repairing jet skis in some beach resort; and another a medical student with some time off and strange desire to fill in his knowledge of car repair; had as much experience as I did. John told us to pay the other imbeciles no mind and he searched amongst the fuses for a relay that would disable the fuel pump, thereby allowing us to complete our lab.

As John essentially did all of the work, talk turned to more important things like drinking beer, the strip bar across the street and why Pep Boys was the worst place to work in the automotive world. John outlined this last point explicitly siting his current line of work at the automotive repair giant. He let us know later and then continuously throughout the semester, how a simple felony in his younger years had landed him at Pep Boys and how he was stuck there until he finished school and could open his own shop. Much like B.A. Barakus, he asserted that he had been charged with a crime he did not commit. "Wrong place at the wrong time," he would say. When probed for details he declined to comment except to say that there was a firearm involved.

John finished the first part of the lab with us well before any of the other groups, but it could be said that we were just as confused about what had been accomplished at the end as when we had begun. We knew what compression was, we know what vacuum was and we knew which porn site Mikey, our dread-locked counterpart, preferred. As to how this related to engine performance was unclear.

At least we had jumped the first hurdle, which was more than could be said for the other groups which were dragging Brad between them like coyotes fighting over an antelope. Each time he moved from one group to another the team he had just finished visiting would generate ten more questions for each of the ones he had answered and would find themselves in holding patterns. Brad, at the end of the four-hour day looked haggard and dejected. He would confess later that he could foresee when a class was going to put him through the ringer, and this one had all the tell-tale signs of going south fast. When the clock indicated that time was up, he pinched the bridge of his nose hard between his fingers and made a beeline for his office, shaking off the students striving to drag him down with questions. In another hour his second class would be arriving.