It’s 2 AM, I should be sleeping, but the garage is always so loud during the day, I can’t quite… I can’t quite turn it off. The air guns, the lift alarms, the engines revving. And the laughter. That’s the loudest part, the *inside* jokes, every single day. I'm the apprentice. "The newbie," they call me. At 76, I guess I am. I’ve been hustling for, what, almost 60 years? Freelance this, contract that. No retirement plan, no pension, just… the next gig. This one's got me on my feet all day, every day, learning the new diagnostics, the CAN bus systems. It's good work, honest work. But lunch. Every day, it’s the same routine. They all gather, the "A-team," you know? Sharing their chili, their elaborate sandwiches. While I sit on the metal toolbox, eating whatever I could grab from the convenience store. A banana, maybe a protein bar. Sometimes just a coffee. My back aches from the cold metal. They don't even look my way. It's like I'm invisible, a ghost in a greasy uniform. They're not mean, not overtly, but the exclusion… it's a kind of psychological ablation, isn't it? A steady wearing away. Anyone else ever feel like they’re in a crowded room but completely alone? Like you're observing a species, studying their rituals, their social hierarchies, but you're not part of the troop? The shared stories, the banter about weekends, about their kids. I have stories, too. Decades of them. But there’s no entry point. It's a closed circuit. Am I the only one who sees this social stratification, this… *demarcation*? I mean, I don't even – whatever. It’s just, after all this time, all the things I've seen, all the people I've worked with… you'd think there’d be a little more… connection. Or maybe, I’m just misinterpreting the data. Maybe I'm the outlier, the statistical anomaly. It’s just a toolbox, every day, every single day. And the cold steel.