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It's a typical morning at The Penn Hills transmission shop. On the lot, a broken-down Cadillac has appeared mysteriously, but no one is terribly surprised. The owners of such vehicles often have them towed to nearby repair shops, knowing the alternative is a tag and a tow to the municipal pound. This one will end up as the many that have preceded it, unclaimed despite repeated attempts to contact the owner, and leaving the shop the laborious task of acquiring the title so the car can be junked.
Inside the shop, past the rows of transmissions looking pocked and plaintive as beef on the hook, mechanic Heather Smith is hard at work rebuilding a late-model transmission. No small feat this, as there are more than 200 parts to the thing. It may be unusual to see a female auto mechanic but hardly news at this shop.
At the customer desk, an itinerant salesman is offering an oddball assortment of goods to the staff. Here are wallets, there attractively packaged wicker baskets of massage oils. The owner of the shop is trying out some children's audio players with minicassettes featuring Christmas songs.
"Those are $6 each," the salesman says.
The owner orders three for the grandkids.
"Great. Eighteen dollars," says the salesman.
"You mean $15."
The salesman's smile turns quizzical. He knows perfectly well the owner can multiply three times six. His eyes take in the thought for the day that the owner has Magic Markered on the shop's whiteboard: "Perseverance is not a long run; it is a series of short races one after another."
"Well, they're $6 each."
"Right," the owner says. "But I'm buying three of them."
Still smiling, the salesman orders one of his associates to fetch the merchandise from their car. Call it power buying, call it a favored-customer discount. Whatever you call it, it is yet another in a lengthy series of triumphs for Lucille Treganowan.
"... the first time I dropped a pan and took a bath in dirty transmission fluid the guys in the shop laughed so long and hard that I fled to the bathroom in tears. I was ready to quit, that's how humiliated I was, but instead I resolved to be more careful next time."