Over the Labor Day weekend, I got to work on a special project at a body shop around L.A. In the space next to me was a team of guys who spent no more than 24 hours fixing an old Toyota. They wanted to get it done so that one of the guys’ mom could drive to work in a car that wasn’t all mangled up and was the same color all over.
It wasn’t particularly pretty work, it wasn’t done by the rules, but it would have to do. One guy was mixing and applying plastic filler with extra hardener so it would cure quickly, while another was thrashing with an orbital sander mere minutes after the goop was applied. Anyway, they stayed up all night and ended up painting the car around 3:00 am.
When I came to work the next day at 8:00, there were many bottles of Pacifico beer laying around the shop, trays of half-eaten enchiladas, salsa and tortilla chips piled high on top of wrecked cars in the alley. I spotted two of the hard-working, hard-driking guys asleep, face down on pieces of cardboard that they laid right on top of the dusty shop floor. Â Mom’s car was mostly back together by noon, and it looked OK from 30 feet. That would have to do… Anyway, this picture reminds me of the mad dash I was a witness to, and I thought I would share it here.
