Under the hood.

Aside from last Saturday (brrrr...), the weather has proven to be perfect for delivering mail.  And on these ever so perfect days, people are very likely to leave their houses to chat with their mail carrier.  This most usually makes me happy, but sometimes our conversations turn out to be not so pleasant.  The following story is one in which I was able to turn the chatter around to my own liking.

A man is outside working on his truck.  I put the mail in his box and greet him with a, "Hello!"  He steps away from his truck and asks, "Hey, what ya' got under your hood?"  I look at him as if he's just said something absurd (hasn't he?) and I ask, "Excuse me?"  He points to my mail truck and asks, "What kind o' engine you got in there?"  And this is the moment where he expects me to shrink about ten sizes smaller.  He obviously asked me this question because I am a girl and girls don't typically know about engines.  And he is right about that...I have no idea about anything 'under the hood', nor do I care to know.  But I wasn't about to spend the rest of my day kicking myself for saying something stupid so I held my head high and said very matter-of-factly, "All of our postal trucks have recycled lawnmower engines in them.  Saves the post office money."  He looked stunned.  He stuttered something inaudible and then said, "Holy shit, really?"  I flashed a smile and said, "Nope.  I've never even tried to open the hood" and then I walked away as quickly as possible before he could ask me anything else I don't know.  So take that.