Totally off the topic of this post, but just replying to your "I'm just a mechanic" remark. I was a mechanic for 26 years, and it's so obvious to recognize the perceived image most people had of me "as just a mechanic" vs. the me off the job, out of uniform. Countless times, in conversations with people, who eventually asked "so what do you do?" would then be surprised and say something like "wow, you know a lot for a mechanic." I guess I was supposed to take that as a compliment. eyeroll I live in an affluent area, and just seeing the way people (mostly women) would react so differently to me, say when I went to to lunch in my uniform, vs. how they would be cordial in normal life, got to become a joke because it was so blatant.

One last thing that I used to get a kick out of. Every Wednesday the business section of the local paper had a column where they would explore the career of a different person, in a different field. The person was interviewed, and explained the details of their job. Week after week I'd read about these different white collar professionals, whose jobs required college degrees and pricey office attire, only to discover that most of them were earning about half of what I was making. Lol. I made a point of reading that column every week, and always got a nice laugh out of it.