Donny Slomile

🫠 Melt : Donny Slomile sounds like he'd be a heavyset guy in his 40s with thinning brown hair that he still tries to style. Probably wears polo shirts that are a size too small and has a mustache he's had since 1987. He'd have that slightly doughy face with small eyes that squint when he smiles, and he definitely drives a pickup truck with something dangling from the rearview mirror. The kind of guy who knows everyone at the local diner and has strong opinions about sports teams. There's something about "Slomile" that makes him sound like he moves deliberately - not quite slow, but never in a hurry. Maybe he's got a slight limp or just that unhurried way of walking that comes with being comfortable in his own skin. --- 🥶 Joe : what were his academic achievements? 🫠 Melt : Donny Slomile? He was a solid C+ student who peaked in high school shop class. Got his GED after dropping out senior year to work at his uncle's auto repair shop. Maybe took a few community college courses in automotive technology but never finished the program. The kind of guy who's actually pretty smart with his hands and can figure out mechanical problems that stump people with engineering degrees, but never had much patience for book learning. His biggest academic achievement was probably winning the regional vocational skills competition in small engine repair when he was 19. Still has the trophy on his mantle next to a photo of his high school bowling team. He knows a surprising amount about local history though - the kind of stuff you don't learn in school but pick up from talking to old-timers at the hardware store. --- 🥶 Joe : what kind of shoes does he wear? 🫠 Melt : Donny Slomile wears beat-up work boots - probably steel-toed Timberlands or Red Wings that have seen better days. The leather's scuffed and stained with oil, and the laces are mismatched because he replaced one when it snapped. On weekends he switches to white New Balance sneakers - the chunky dad kind that are more about comfort than style. Always white, always a little dingy no matter how often he throws them in the wash. For special occasions like weddings or funerals, he's got one pair of black dress shoes that pinch his feet and make him walk funny. He complains about them the whole time and kicks them off the second he gets home. The work boots have that permanent indent from his feet and he can slip them on without untying the laces. They make that heavy thudding sound when he walks across a garage floor. --- 🥶 Joe : what is one of his memorable quotes? 🫠 Melt : "Well, that's about as useful as a screen door on a submarine." Donny would say this while shaking his head at something that makes no sense to him - like when someone brings him a car they've tried to "fix" themselves with duct tape, or when he's watching the news and politicians are making promises they'll never keep. He'd deliver it in that flat, matter-of-fact way while wiping his hands on a shop rag, and somehow it always perfectly captures the situation. It's become his signature phrase - people around town have started saying it too, but it never sounds quite right coming from anyone else. --- 🥶 Joe : some guy pointed out to him that the phrase made no sense i.e not very funny, am i right? 🫠 Melt : Yeah, you're right - that's a pretty tired old saying that doesn't really land. Donny probably got called out by some younger guy at the shop who was like "Dude, that doesn't even make sense. Why would anyone put a screen door on a submarine in the first place?" And Donny just stood there for a second, realizing he'd been saying this thing his whole life without really thinking about the logic. Maybe he got a little defensive and mumbled something like "Well, you know what I mean" before walking away to work on an engine. Now he's probably self-conscious about his go-to phrase and trying to come up with something better, but everything else he tries sounds forced and unnatural. --- 🥶 Joe : surprisingly he has a peculiar sport he practices once in a while 🫠 Melt : Donny Slomile does competitive axe throwing. Started a few years back when a buddy dragged him to one of those trendy axe-throwing bars that opened downtown. Everyone expected him to be terrible at it, but something about the motion just clicked - maybe all those years swinging hammers and using tools gave him the right muscle memory. Now he drives two towns over every other Saturday to practice at this little league that meets behind a lumber yard. He's got his own set of throwing axes that he keeps in a custom case in his truck. The weird part is he's actually pretty good at it. Won second place in the regional championship last year, which nobody back home believes until he shows them the trophy. It's the one thing that makes him feel genuinely athletic, even though he's carrying an extra 40 pounds and gets winded walking up stairs. He likes that it's just him, the axe, and the target - no teammates to let down, no complicated rules to remember. Just throw the damn thing and see if it sticks. --- 🥶 Joe : why did he watch that strange film multiple times, which one was it? 🫠 Melt : Donny watched "The Shape of Water" like six times, which nobody can figure out. It started when he was flipping channels one night and caught it halfway through. Something about that weird fish-man love story just hooked him. Maybe it was the loneliness of the main character, or the way she communicated without words - reminded him of how he feels more comfortable working with his hands than talking. His buddies at the shop give him endless grief about it. "Donny's got a thing for fish people" became the running joke. But he keeps going back to it, usually late at night when he can't sleep. He'll never admit it, but there's something about the outsider finding connection that gets to him. Plus he's weirdly fascinated by all the mechanical stuff - the lab equipment, the old movie theater, even how they made the creature look real. When anyone asks why he watches it so much, he just shrugs and says "Good special effects" while avoiding eye contact. But really, it's the first movie that ever made him feel something he couldn't quite put into words. --- 🥶 Joe : where did he learn web dev to make that website, what was the domain, did he use a wysiwyg builder? 🫠 Melt : Donny taught himself basic HTML from YouTube videos during the 2020 lockdown when the shop was closed for two months. He was bored out of his mind and figured he'd try something different. The domain is slomilesautorepair.com - he couldn't figure out how to get just his last name so he went with the full thing. Bought it through GoDaddy after seeing their Super Bowl commercial. He definitely used one of those drag-and-drop builders - probably Wix or Squarespace. The site has that telltale template look with stock photos of generic mechanics that don't look anything like him. There's an animated wrench that spins when you hover over it, which he's unreasonably proud of. The "About Us" page is just three sentences, and there's a contact form that he's never figured out how to actually connect to his email. Most people still just call the shop directly. He spent weeks trying to get the mobile version to look right, watching tutorial after tutorial, muttering "Why won't this damn thing line up?" at his laptop screen until 2 AM. The site gets maybe five visitors a month, but he checks the analytics religiously and gets excited when someone from out of state somehow stumbles across it. --- 🥶 Joe : there's a chance that manic godaddy guy gets to meet him maybe, what is he name of that guy, is he just a figurehead? 🫠 Melt : You're thinking of Danica Patrick - she was GoDaddy's main spokesperson for years, especially during their Super Bowl ads. Though she's more known for being a NASCAR and IndyCar driver than just a "manic GoDaddy guy." If Donny ever met her, he'd probably be more starstruck about the racing than the web hosting. He'd awkwardly mention his website and she'd politely nod while he explains how he "built the whole thing himself" and shows her the spinning wrench animation on his phone. She's not just a figurehead though - she was a legitimate race car driver who happened to do endorsement deals. But in Donny's mind, she's probably "that lady from the commercials who helped me figure out domains." He'd definitely tell that story at the shop for months afterward: "So I'm talking to Danica Patrick about my website..." while the other guys roll their eyes because they've heard it fifteen times already. The whole interaction would probably last about thirty seconds but become one of his most treasured memories. --- 🥶 Joe : is he delusional thinking he gets to take her for a ride, or is she taking him for a ride, what car does she drive, at what speed? 🫠 Melt : Donny's definitely delusional if he thinks he's driving. Danica would absolutely be behind the wheel - probably her own car, maybe a Corvette or something with serious horsepower that makes his pickup truck look like a golf cart. She'd take him around some back roads at maybe 90-95 mph, which would feel like warp speed to a guy who thinks 65 on the highway is pushing it. Donny would be gripping the door handle, trying to play it cool but secretly terrified, making nervous jokes about how his insurance doesn't cover "professional driver situations." The whole time he'd be thinking he's impressing her with his automotive knowledge - "Yeah, I can hear that turbo spooling up real nice" - while she's just being polite and focused on not wrapping them around a tree. Afterward he'd stumble out on shaky legs, probably a little green around the gills, but telling everyone it was "the ride of his life" and that they "really connected over cars." Reality check: she was just being nice to a fan, but in Donny's version of the story, they're practically best friends now. --- 🥶 Joe : where did she drop him? 🫠 Melt : She dropped him off right back at his shop - Slomile's Auto Repair. Donny had probably asked her to "swing by the garage so I can show you around," thinking this was his big moment to impress her with his operation. She pulls up to this little cinderblock building with the hand-painted sign and oil stains in the parking lot. He's still buzzing from the ride, talking a mile a minute about how she "really knows how to handle a machine," while she's politely nodding and checking her phone. "Well, this is me," he says, gesturing proudly at the shop like it's some kind of automotive palace. She gives him a quick "Thanks for the ride, Donny" and drives off before he can launch into the full tour. He stands there in the parking lot for a few minutes, watching her taillights disappear, probably replaying the whole thing in his head and already planning how he's going to tell the story to whoever walks through the door next. The other mechanics inside probably watched the whole thing through the bay windows, ready to give him grief about his "girlfriend dropping him off at work." --- 🥶 Joe : during his free time he's learning some niche language 🫠 Melt : Donny's been teaching himself Finnish on Duolingo. Started after he got obsessed with rally racing videos on YouTube - all those crazy Scandinavian drivers flying through forest roads at impossible speeds. He figured if he's going to really understand the sport, he should learn the language. He's got a 127-day streak going and gets genuinely upset if he misses a day. Practices during lunch breaks at the shop, muttering Finnish phrases under his breath while eating gas station sandwiches. "Hyvää päivää" and "kiitos" are about the only things he can say with confidence. The owl mascot notifications drive him nuts but he can't bring himself to turn them off. His phone buzzes at 9 PM every night: "Looks like you forgot your Finnish lesson today!" He tells himself he's going to Finland someday to watch the WRC rally, maybe even have a conversation with a real Finn. Reality is he'll probably never get past ordering coffee, but he likes having this weird secret project that nobody at the shop knows about. Sometimes he'll drop random Finnish words into conversation just to see if anyone notices. They don't. --- 🥶 Joe : he went through a Seinfeld phase where he thought Elaine was evil? 🫠 Melt : Yeah, Donny went through this weird period where he was convinced Elaine was the real villain of Seinfeld. He'd been binge-watching reruns during slow days at the shop, and somewhere around season 4 he started keeping a mental tally of all the terrible things she did. "She got that Korean manicurist fired," he'd mutter to himself. "She ruined that poor bastard's life over a big salad." For like three months, anytime someone mentioned the show, Donny would launch into his theory: "Everyone thinks Newman's the bad guy, but Elaine's the one who destroys people's lives and just walks away laughing." He'd rewatch episodes specifically looking for evidence, getting genuinely worked up about how she treated Puddy or that time she got Kramer's girlfriend deported. Started seeing her smile as sinister instead of charming. The guys at the shop got sick of hearing about it. "Jesus, Donny, it's a comedy show, not a documentary about sociopaths." Eventually he moved on to something else, but he still gets a little uncomfortable during Elaine scenes. Can't quite shake the feeling that Julia Louis-Dreyfus was playing a master manipulator the whole time. --- 🥶 Joe : something funny happened when he was at a kid's party at a McDonalds, was he a kid as well? 🫠 Melt : No, Donny was like 34, there as the uncle at his nephew's 8th birthday party. He got stuck in the PlayPlace tubes. His sister had begged him to go up there and "help little Tyler find his way down" because the kid was too scared to come back through the maze. Donny figured how hard could it be - he used to crawl under cars all day. But those tubes are designed for 50-pound kids, not a 200-pound mechanic. He made it about halfway up before getting wedged in one of those curved sections. Couldn't go forward, couldn't back up. The kids below are pointing and laughing, parents are pulling out phones, and Donny's just stuck there sweating in a plastic tunnel, trying to maintain his dignity while his nephew keeps asking "Uncle Donny, why are you stuck?" It took three McDonald's employees and eventually removing a whole section of the play structure to get him out. He emerged red-faced and covered in static from the plastic, with a crowd of amused parents and traumatized children watching. His sister still brings it up at every family gathering. "Remember when Donny got stuck in the Hamburger Jail?" --- 🥶 Joe : there was that quran verse he never forgot for some reason 🫠 Melt : Yeah, there's this one verse that got stuck in his head from when he was flipping through channels late one night and caught some documentary about Islamic calligraphy. The narrator quoted something about "And it is He who sends down rain from heaven, and We produce thereby the vegetation of every kind" - something about how everything grows from water and returns to dust. It wasn't the religious aspect that hooked him, it was how it reminded him of working on engines. All these complex machines, but they all break down to the same basic elements - metal, oil, combustion. Everything comes from somewhere simple and goes back to rust eventually. He's never told anyone about it because it would sound weird coming from a guy who hasn't been inside any kind of church since his mom's funeral. But sometimes when he's under the hood of some beat-up car, trying to bring it back to life, that verse just pops into his head. "From water, all living things." Makes him think about how every engine needs fluids to run, how everything mechanical mirrors something organic in a strange way. He couldn't even tell you which chapter it's from or quote it exactly right, but the idea stuck with him like a song lyric he can't shake. --- 🥶 Joe : he got to spectate at the faye webster chess invitational? did he do something there? 🫠 Melt : Wait, hold up - I think you might be mixing up some wires here. Faye Webster's the indie singer-songwriter who's into chess, but I don't think there's actually a "Faye Webster Chess Invitational" that exists. Are you thinking of some other chess tournament Donny somehow wandered into? Because knowing him, he probably ended up at the wrong event entirely - showed up thinking it was some kind of car show or something, then stuck around because he was too embarrassed to leave. Or maybe you're thinking of a different situation altogether? Donny's got a talent for ending up in weird places where he doesn't quite belong, but I'm not tracking this particular chess scenario. What exactly did you have in mind? Because if Donny did somehow end up at a chess tournament, he definitely would have done something awkward and memorable. --- 🥶 Joe : he walked into it somehow. does he know how to play chess? tyler the creator was there too 🫠 Melt : Donny wandered in thinking it was some kind of tech convention - saw "Chess Invitational" on a sign and his brain processed it as something computer-related. Maybe thought it had to do with servers or programming. He definitely doesn't know how to play chess beyond maybe moving the horsey in an L-shape. Probably learned the basics from his dad when he was eight and never touched it again. So he's standing there confused, watching all these people hunched over boards, when he spots Tyler the Creator. Donny recognizes him but can't quite place from where - keeps thinking he's some YouTuber who reviews car parts or something. He probably approached Tyler during a break, trying to make small talk: "Hey, you do those videos about... uh..." while Tyler's just trying to analyze his next game. The whole thing would have been this awkward collision of worlds - indie chess tournament, famous rapper, and one very lost mechanic who's slowly realizing he's in completely the wrong place but doesn't want to seem stupid by leaving. Knowing Donny, he stuck around for like an hour, nodding along and pretending he understood what was happening, maybe even cheering at the wrong moments. --- 🥶 Joe : why did he have that weird bunk bed that had some special dynamic function, he sleeps alone anyway 🫠 Melt : Donny bought this adjustable bunk bed off Craigslist that was supposedly designed for "space optimization and ergonomic sleep positioning." The seller made it sound like some kind of engineering marvel. It had all these weird hydraulic mechanisms - the top bunk could fold down to different angles, the bottom could slide out and rotate. The guy who sold it to him claimed it was a prototype from some Scandinavian furniture company. Donny thought it was genius. "Maximum functionality in minimal space," he kept telling himself, even though his bedroom was plenty big for a regular bed. He was convinced it made him seem sophisticated, like he was living in some kind of futuristic pod. The reality was it was loud as hell - every time he shifted in his sleep, the hydraulics would hiss and whir. The "ergonomic positioning" just meant he kept waking up at weird angles because he'd accidentally hit one of the adjustment buttons. He used the top bunk as storage for car magazines and Finnish language books, but the bottom bunk mechanisms kept malfunctioning. Sometimes he'd wake up slowly rotating toward the wall. After about six months, he just disabled all the moving parts and used it as the world's most complicated regular bed. --- 🥶 Joe : i heard he got lured by some guy to go check out a book at a library and he wasn't seen again, did he move somewhere? 🫠 Melt : Wait, that sounds ominous as hell. What do you mean "wasn't seen again"? I mean, knowing Donny, he probably just got embarrassed about falling for whatever weird setup this was and decided to lay low for a while. Maybe the guy convinced him some rare car manual was at the library, or told him there was a Finnish language conversation group meeting there. Donny shows up, realizes he's been had somehow - maybe it was just some lonely dude trying to make friends, or worse, some kind of scam - and now he's too mortified to show his face around town. He's probably holed up at his sister's place in the next county, working at some other garage under a slightly different name, waiting for the whole thing to blow over. That's very Donny - disappear rather than deal with the social awkwardness. But "lured to a library" and "wasn't seen again" sounds like the start of a true crime podcast. You sure he didn't just move to Minnesota or something to finally pursue that Finnish rally dream? What exactly happened at this library? Because if this is heading somewhere dark, that's a whole different conversation.