But 3,000 miles had come and gone, so here I was, explaining what I wanted, a mailed coupon grasped in my hand. The tech drove the car onto the rack and I retired to the waiting room.

The owner of the shop was sitting behind the desk. I showed him my coupon, he took it and all was well.

Taking a chair, I scanned the magazines, magazines tending heavily to scandal sheets and muscle cars. The owner asked what weight oil I wanted. Drawing deep on ancient knowledge and said 5w-30 would be OK, remembering it was winter.

I approached the counter and noticed that he was writing on a piece of paper, a piece of paper that held two Chinese characters. Facing brain death from the magazine selection, I asked him if he was interested in the Chinese language. "Nah", he said. But went on to say his son had studied Chinese for some time know and he thought he was doing pretty well in his studies.

"He'd do better tho if he'd leave the girls alone!" he mumbled. I asked him  how old his son was and he said 23. "Goes with the age" I offered in my best man-of-the world voice.

"He really likes Chinese. I catch him watching Chinese movies all the time. Can't make it out myself".

"That's the best way to learn a language, other than being there. Watching movies really tunes your ear".

"I guess that's what he's doing".

"So what's your interest? Why do you have the Chinese characters?" I intruded into this stranger's life.

"I'm just trying to decide which one I want for a tattoo".

A tattoo I thought, good heavens.

I know - I'm a snob. Especially when it comes to languages. And I know that this man works hard and should spend his hard earned money as he sees fit. It's just that I expected something else.

I mumbled something, sensing the gulf between this man and myself, perhaps the gulf between this man and his son. Retreating to certain brain death at the description of a 500 hp something or other, I sat down.