I love my mechanic.  He's honest.  He knows what he's doing.  He brings out my VW's inner Porsche without sending me to the poor house.  And he's prompt.

There is nothing more to want from another human being.  

Today, after a long four-day work week, Pete tackled the mystery of the on-again, off-again check-engine light that has been crying wolf for, oh, a while now.

As it turns out, it has come on for different reasons over the years, and Pete has addressed every one of those reasons.  Today he had the choice of selling me an expensive part and the hours it would take to install it or trying a different strategy, based on another mechanic's experience of his sister-in-law's car whose check-engine light played the same catch-me-if-you-can games.  That other strategy was a 20-minute task.

For next to no money and in next to no time, he solved the problem.  

Sitting in a patio chair while he made the repair, I watched the traffic roll by in time with the autumn clouds whose moody darkness brought out the rich and lovely color of the autumn leaves on trees that have almost been denuded by time, and I felt good.  It was one of those people-are-good moments that made everything about here and now feel right.  

Pete's the best.