Men In Overalls

An overall is like a strapless handbag, there is a pocket for everything.

I got so caught up researching AI and robots for my next book on YouTube that I forgot to finish my latest newsletter.

Sometimes I wonder if we would not be better off spending all our time and energy helping the poor and starving. I mean, what’s the good of a robotic world when so many live in inappropriate places for a robot?

I have fallen in love with Pete, there is something about him on Earth I can’t get enough of, and yet, in the Planet Hy Man books he is not on Earth for too long.

Maybe I’ll change that in future books.

But for now, I’m digging deeper into his time on earth in Rebel Without A Bra—— when they explored such things as garages, the Edinburgh Festival, and men performing as women (yet to come). Along the way, he has to deal with his boss/owner, Mex struggling to adapt to earth’s sugar, and Pete growing ‘know it all’ confidence.

Still Heading Into February 2008

Thanks to a bump on the ferry from a van driven by (as Don put it) a geriatric reversing with her reading glasses on Don’s car had been bashed within an inch of its life.

And Don, swearing like Bunnie on the wrong side of a hangover, insisted on visiting the ‘lads’- a squad of mechanics who happily do ‘discounted cash payments’.

We were heading for a garage, a place I was curious to see until Woody explained it wasn’t a band or a sale but merely a place where cars were fixed.

The rain was, to quote Bunnie, “pelting down”.

“There are three sorts of rain,” she said. “Smirr or was it smear?————heavy and ‘run for cover’.”

“Run for cover?” said Mex, still looking green from her ferry/sugar sickness. “On Planet Hy Man we have only one sort of rain ‘dig a dam or drown’.”

Bunnie, sitting in the front of the car let out a long “really” sigh which I knew meant negative with a capital N.

“Our planet is as dry as a camel’s arse,” I joked attempting to change the capital N to a small one. “We can go for decades without a trickle of the stuff.”

The silence was deafening, I mean no one laughed.

“Rain is a celebrated affair.” I continued “So rare we get out the band, the flags, and, well, dance in the stuff.”

“Until the third day,” Mex muttered.

“Yes but until then it’s a right royal knees up.” I laughed.

“Don’t listen to him” said Mex “The whole dancing thing is exaggerated.”

“Well a few of us jig about” I muttered.

“The last time it rained you robots slipped about the place like ice skaters high on hemp”.

“I find that hard to believe,” said Bunnie.

“It’s not called the skidding season for nothing,” said Mex.

“Not all of us call it that,” I said.

She threw me one of her ‘I know best looks’, “we skid about in the wet hoping it will stop, and when it doesn’t…Trapdoors are opened, and drains are cleared so we can collect the rain.”

“Aye by us robots”, I added.

“If all that is true what do you wash your armpits with in the dry times?” Said Woody.

“Caffeine,” I said, and when no one laughed I added, “We have wells.”

“Yes well, I gathered that.” Sniffed Bunnie.

“Well …. very funny” chuckled Don.

“We have so many wells we’ve lost count of the robots that have fallen in,” I said. “Of course, it is always the old and in-firmed ones.”

“You have in-firmed robots?” Said DJ.

“Oh absolutely, the sensors are the first to blow on the older model and once that goes it’s only a matter of time before the owner leads them up the garden path and out into the forest where all the wells are. And before you can say ‘how’s your father” they have fallen in…”

“Tainting our pickling caffeine,” muttered Mex.

“When a robot gets to that stage there is no chance of a refund, and recycling at the dump is a costly exercise.”

Mex, tight-lipped was about to say something but when Don pulled into the garage with a ‘here we are’, she stopped.

The garage was full of equipment as old as our leader’s sermons with men in the sort of overalls even a robot wouldn’t be seen in. Mex couldn’t help but stare——the sort that led to ridiculous questions. I could tell, her body language is as easy to read as a dog by a bowl of food, as were those men in the garage.

They looked the sort that would ‘knock your block off ‘as soon as look at you.

Tension ripped through me as quick as Mex’s seasickness, her questioning these greased-up men was asking for trouble with a capital T—I could feel it in my Lycra.

I grabbed her arm.

Let’s leave it to Don’s dry wit to warm the experts I was about to say when Mex jumped in with the sort of questions, that could ‘give our game away’. I had to put her off and when that didn’t work I guided her to Bunnie sitting in the reception area.

Bunnie took one look at Mex and said “Coffee” and before Mex could nod, slid a coin into a machine and watched a paper cup plop forth.

Mex and I stared, the only place we saw such archaic machinery was in the basement of the Building of Opulence, a dark place where man’s inventions were kept for a laugh.

After watching the last splatterings of the coffee machine Bunnie lifted the cup and handed it to Mex who with a sniff of the dark substance pulled a face.

“Men” huffed Bunnie.

Mex with a confused look affected a nod while I took a sharp retreat. Once Bunnie starts on her “men” speech it’s always best to leave, she could go on for as long as the burning of a candle.

Woody and DJ were still where I left them, watching Don negotiate with a mechanic, and from the look on his face it was all but “smooth sailing.” Apparently, ‘the lads’ had left and the new owner and his team had no idea who Don was.

“Perhaps the discount for cash was just a myth, ” muttered Woody.

I didn’t say much, a car was up on a ramp and looking underneath had me gasping, it was as old-fashioned as Mex’s outfit and we had been sitting in one even older.

“It’s a jag,” said Woody like that explained everything.

“Jag?” I said. “you mean like in a needle?”

“Jag..u…ar,” said DJ, like he was spelling to an idiot.

“As in a big cat?” I laughed.

“It…is …a car… do you have one of them where you come from.” Said smart-arse DJ.

“Yes,” I said. “They are called limos and they, unlike that ‘Jag’ don’t need a driver.”

I may as well have tried to down a coffee in a paper cup in a hurricane as try to impress DJ. He merely looked over my head like it was a pimple and said.

“Do they have garages where you come from for limos? And what about you robots, when your circuits are up the spout where do you go, Robot hospital?”

I explained that circuits on our planet were as old as a TV aerial, DJ looked at me like I was miming in another language, while Woody chuckled and Don muttered about a new owner, and ridiculous prices.

“That guy was as helpful as a twat in a cemetery,” he sighed as Bunnie, looking exasperated appeared with Mex.

“The car will take a while to repair,” he shouted to her like she was a mile away, “so they have given us a ‘people carrier’ to use.” And before she could utter a word, Mex eyes on the ‘Jag’ started talking of spark plugs; sparking (excuse the pun) the sort of laughter I crave…until I realized the mechanics were laughing at her rather than with her.

Spark plugs it seems is a different thing on earth.

Our replacement vehicle was so high Woody needed a stool to get in.

Don jumped in the driver’s seat, slid on his AC/DC CD and “Highway to Hell” blasted from the dashboard.

“Come on Buns” he shouted to Bunnie.

Bunnie jumped in, turned the music to a whisper then said. “Well, there’ll be no skidding in this beast no matter how hard the downpour,” and everyone laughed——-even the mechanics.

Earth humor it seems is as confusing as the Scottish language and as hard to deliver as the spelling of it.

Discover unlimited reading with Kobo Plus.

Kobo Plus is like Kindle Unlimited and they are offering a free monthly trial.

My books are in Kobo Plus along with other Sci-Fi books such as…

The Last Vhalgenn- only $0.99

A Dark Fantasy by Kayelle Allen

The Vhalgenn is the last of her kind, a companion bred to serve the king. Duty and honor burn in her blood.
But when you've sacrificed your life, what more can you offer?

And now for the second part of The Three Amigos and a new hairdo for me!

Until next time happy reading.