Not even a walking stereotype. I’m a hair-twirling, gum-snapping stereotype. My conversational style sinks to Valley Girl, and I think I might emit a high pitched nervous giggle or two.
That’s a description of me talking to a mechanic. In the shop or on the phone (when I also get to shush a baby in the background or lift a crying toddler out of the toilet, too, just to pile stereotype upon stereotype).
All the car places we’ve gone to have had only men working there. That is not what makes me uncomfortable, it’s that combined with my utter lack of knowledge about cars. I’m pretty quick–if I wanted to know about cars, I would probably know something. But I really hate cars. So when the car guy calls me and starts talking about sway bars or belts or axles or even tires, I’m lost. I’m the stereotypical girl who doesn’t know anything about cars. Who says things like, “Hi, um, what was that thing you said? The tilting thing? The bar thing? Y’know? That thing?” Which is what I had to call and say when I couldn’t remember the name of the thing that I was trying to google so I would know what the thing was. I heard myself and was not happy.
I’m almost at the point of looking for a class for this kind of thing. But I really do hate cars.
