Warm Feet, Fast Hands: The Seat Safety Switch Survival Story

"Seat Safety Switch" (seat-safety-switch) 09/14/2015 at 12:31 • Filed to: heart of dorkness, snap on socks, snap-on, fiat, brazil

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I asked for a mission, and for my sins, they gave me one. And after that mission I swore I’d never want another. But then they gave me another, so I did that one too.

The year was 1989. I had been summoned by my superiors at Fiat to fly to Brazil and attempt to smooth things over with a local subsidiary. Their cars were breaking too often, the faceless automatons in their suit jackets said, and they didn’t understand why. They needed a mechanic with a heart of gold and a steely work ethic, but they got me.

Once I got there, things got off to a bad start with Simon, the resident expat mechanic who had been sent before me on another failed expertise-trade mission and who had gone native with spectacular force. He said I didn’t understand how things were done down here.

“Simon, there’s something I just don’t get,” I whined pitifully, “If you’re already here doing the work, why did they send me?”

He shrugged, shuffled a bit. “Pass me the 16mm crescent wrench,” he said gruffly, and I turned to obey. I froze in place. No fastener on a Fiat had a 16mm head . Simon saw the realization hit me. Then he hit me. With a wrench.

When I awoke, I found myself dangling upside-down, chained by my ankles to Simon’s well-worn engine crane. I swayed left and right in the gentle breeze. I was already halfway to undoing myself and making a break for freedom when Simon entered the room, a scarred Brazilian mechanic of similar height in tow.

I could scarcely understand them, but it doesn’t take a Portuguese translator to realize he was selling me to the Brazilians in exchange for the rarest currency of all: Snap-On socks.

Captain of the Enterprise > Seat Safety Switch 09/14/2015 at 12:45

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You suck me in everytime

Richtofen, Baron von Pickup > Seat Safety Switch 09/14/2015 at 14:31

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I’m bleeding some. It’s cool.