1. So, which one of you is Click and which one is Clack?
2. Are you two married?
3. Do you have kids?
4. Do you guys have any pets?
5. Are there other brothers or sisters?
6. When do you actually broadcast the show? I've heard it at different times in different cities.
7. What do you look for in callers?
8. What are my odds of actually getting on the show?
9. Do you guys know in advance what questions you'll be getting?
10. How do you prepare for the show?
11. When did you first get interested in cars?
12. Are your parents proud of what you do?
13. Do you really run a garage?
14. Do people ever come by the garage just to see if it really exists?
15. Do you really work out of an office called Dewey, Cheetham and Howe?
16. Where is Dewey, Cheetham and Howe?
17. Does the "The Tasty" really exist? And, if it's for real, is it as greasy as you make it sound?
18. What do you do in your spare time?
19. What kind of cars do you drive...really?
20. What kind of scenery do you like?
21. Do you wear boxers or briefs?
22. I've seen pictures of Tom. Is that his real hair?
23. Did you two really go to MIT?
24. Did either of you serve in the Armed Forces?
25. Tom often says things like "When I was in Kuala Lumpur," or "when I was in Canberra...." He seems very widely travelled. Was he ever in the CIA?
26. How do I send you guys e-mail?
27. Why did you guys start a web site?
28. Do you plan to keep doing your NPR radio show forever?
29. I can't e-mail you a twenty dollar bill. What is the snail mail address I should use?
30. What's your 800 call-in number?

Ray: No, we're brothers.

Tom: Actually, yes. My brother has been happily married all his life, and I've been happily married several times...currently to the most wonderful woman in the universe....what's her name again?

Ray: That's what makes him such an expert on marital disputes. He's had all of them.

Tom: Of course we have kids. Who do you think takes out the garbage? I have a married daughter, a 14 year old son, and a nine year old daughter.

Ray: And I have two boys, 20 and 12.

Tom: I thought we just answered that question! Actually, we have a Golden Retriever named Harriet...Harry for short. She's sweet, but boy is she dumb. Worse than my brother.

Ray: We have a dog and a cat. Our dog is ...what do you call that breed?

Tom: A mutt.

Ray: That's it. Part Border Collie and part something else. Her name is Phillie, because she was a stray and we found her while watching one of my younger son's little league games (his team was the Phillies). He also named our cat Doug, after our producer Doug Berman. Needless to say, the cat smells bad, sleeps a lot, and has an unpleasant personality when he is awake.

Ray: Rumor has it there's a Tappet sister, but I've never met her.

Tom: Her name's Lucille. She's between us in age. She's the black sheep of the family.

Ray: Right. She's likeable, well-mannered, and successful.

Ray: We're not allowed to divulge that information. We're in the Federal Broadcaster Protection Program. The goverment gives us new identities and moves us all over the country to hide us from irate former callers.

Tom: Actually, we use answering machines to be fair to people in all the different time zones where Car Talk is broadcast. So anyone can call anytime they like and leave a message for us. Every week, Ken Rogers and his staff of lackies go through the messages and pick a variety to throw at us when we go on the air.

Ray: We don't look for anything in callers. We're not allowed to participate in caller selection, because they know we'd just pick all the easy questions.

Tom: The staff tries to get a variety of callers on every week; people from different parts of the country, with different kinds of cars, different types of problems...some mechanical, some interpersonal, you know. But there's no specific type of person or question we're looking for. We just look for variety.

Tom: Take the unabomber's chances of getting a job with UPS when he gets out of jail. Now quintuple that. We take about 10 calls every week from about 10,000 we receive. What's that? One in 1000?

Ray: But your odds are just as good--or as bad as anyone elses. So it's worth a try. Hey, someone has to be on the show every week!

Tom: As if that would help us! What good would knowing the questions be? It's the ANSWERS we need!

Ray: We never, ever know what questions are going to be asked. That would ruin the fun for us--plus it would be dishonest. And then we might be expected to give the right answers, which would be too great a burden for us.

Tom: Only Ken Rogers knows who's going to be on the show each week since he calls people back. Well, maybe Mr. Gigi knows, too.

Tom: Pardon? "Prepare?"

Ray: Now there's a word with which we're completely unfamiliar. Does sitting around a folding table eating Ho-Ho's count as preparation? If it does, then we prepare extensively.

Tom: Right after I ran my father's '32 Chevy out of oil.

Ray: I got interested watching him. He's 12 years older than I am. So when I was four, he was already trying to do emergency repairs on dad's car before the old man got home. I would stand around and watch...

Tom: ...and he'd point out mistakes I was making. That's when I knew I was in trouble.

Ray: I don't think they care. Once they got Tommy to finally move out of the house five years ago, they packed up and moved. We haven't heard from them since. Actually, our father listens to every show. Always has.

Tom: And my mother calls and tells us my brother to stop ranting and raving so much, and stop making fun of that nice boy, Doug Berman. But he never listens.

Tom: My brother still runs the garage every day. I don't work there anymore. We opened the garage together. But after ten or fifteen years, I got sick of making my fingers bleed and breathing exhaust fumes all day. I decided I didn't want to work for a living anymore... so I went into academia.

Ray: Now he goes in late and comes home early. In fact, one day he left right after lunch and passed himself coming in!

Ray: Oh, sure. We're probably the only garage in the country with an unlisted number. But somehow, people find us anyway. We get a lot of tourists in Boston on vacation, and they come by with their families and poke their heads in and take a few pictures. I guess it's kind of like going to "Greaseland."

Tom: And my brother's too nice a guy to throw them out... so the cars are piling up and the customers are yelling and he's standing there, smiling, having his picture taken with some family from Omaha.

Tom: Please! Don't ever use the "w" word in my presence again.

Ray: We never say, "Tom is at work." We say, "He's at the office." And, yes, to answer your question, there is a Dewey, Cheetham and Howe. It's the company that produces "Car Talk; the radio show," "Car Talk; the newspaper column," "Car Talk; the web site," and all its other variations. It's also where Doug Berman sleeps during the day.

Tom: Right where we want it, about thirty five feet away from the Tasty.

Ray: It's in the middle of Harvard Square in Cambridge. If you're ever in our fair city, go right to the middle of the square, look toward the corner of Brattle Street and JFK, and you'll see DCH.

Ray: Well...it did, at least until Harvard Square got all gentrified on us. You know what replaced it? Get this: Abercrombie and Fitch. Great. Like I need a $500 grunge crop-top sweater and wide-legged pants. The Tasty used to buy my used motor oil in 55 gallon drums -- they used it to cook the french fries. Now what am I going to do with it? Use it on Tommy's hair? If you want to know more about the Tasty and its once-hallowed counter, check out our special feature called Save The Tasty. As you've probably figured out by now, we lost to the ruthless corporate schmoes at Cambridge Savings Bank.

Ray: I like gardening and woodworking. I can be found either puttering around the house or asleep on the sofa in front of the TV with drool running down my chin and the clicker in one hand.

Tom: I don't understand the concept of spare time. All my time is spare! In fact, my son said to me recently "Dad, if you were on vacation, how would you know?" Little wise ass.

Tom: I drive a 1963 Dodge Dart convertible. No kidding. It's sleek, it's black, and it's beautiful.

Ray: Until last fall, it was two-tone: snot green and rust colored. Then one afternoon he sprayed it with a can of black Rustoleum.

Tom: I still think we should have taped up the windows first.

Ray: I, on the other hand, drive a thoroughly modern, fuel efficient 1987 Dodge Colt Vista.

Tom: That's better???

Ray: Are you kidding? The Colt Vista is a marvel of engineering.

Tom: Not to mention a study in ugliness.

Ray: I gave --or should I say foisted-- my '87 Dodge Dakota pickup on my son, so I needed a car. And when a customer was about to junk this Colt Vista, I bought it off her for $100. $3,000, two engine jobs, and a catalytic converter later, I have a working car! It's also dirt brown, so I never have to wash it.

Ray: I love natural beauty. Maybe that's why I can't stand my brother. I love the outdoors...the woods, the trees, the parks, the ocean....

Tom: ....the rabid racoons, the mosquitoes, the biting ants. I hate nature. He's always trying to get me to go camping or cross country skiing. Who in their right mind would want to cross the country on a pair of skis??! Give me grit and grime. Give me people. Give me urban decay. Give me a cup of coffee and a park bench and I'm happy.

Ray: Don't forget to give him some old newspapers so he can cover himself and take a nap.

Tom: I wear neither.

Ray: Right. His wife wraps him in an Ace bandage before he leaves the house. I'm a "boxer" man myself.

Ray: Yes. He was the subject of some low level radioactive experimentation in the 1950's, and that hair and his brain damage are the two lasting legacies.

Tom: It actually is my hair. And the reason I'm usually late for morning meetings is that I always have to wait for my hair to "stabilize."

Ray: Oh, yeah. I remember it well. We went there once to deliver plants to the lobby of the admissions office. They said "put 'em here," and we left.

Tom: Actually, I graduated in 1958 with a degree in Chemical Engineering and my brother barely graduated with a degree in General Science.

RAY: I was MIT class of '70, '71, and '72.

Ray: I didn't. I was a VISTA volunteer in San Antonio in the late 60's. I was teaching poor kids to read and working on my mosquito swatting skills.

Tom: I'm a product of the U.S. Army; Fort Dix, New Jersey. I-Company, Fourth Training Regiment, October, 1959 until March, 1960. I'll never forget the frequent words of my commanding officer, Seargent McNeely. He had a southern drawl, and every Friday he would bellow: "Everybody will go on pass this weekend except Prahh-vate Maaaaaaaglleeeeeohhhhzeeeee."

Ray: He's widely travelled alright. When little kids see him on the street, they travel around him as widely as they can and cry for their mommies.

Tom: I was not only in the CIA, I was one of the founding fathers of the Carburetor Institute of America. Oh, not that CIA? Actually I was a consultant, and I was doing a lot of educational training overseas in the 1960's. It does sound like CIA work, doesn't it?

Tom: Every important department at Car Talk Plaza is linked directly via e-mail to the "Talk to Car Talk E-Mail Center" here at cartalk.com.

Ray: So your e-mail is only one click away from sitting in a dead file somewhere on our hard drive for the next three years.

Ray: I was concerned about Tommy. I wanted to keep him out of trouble. You know, he doesn't exactly have much to do with his time.

Tom: Plus, we found out our Barber had a web site, and we were jealous.

Tom: It hasn't been forever already?

Ray: It has to our listeners!

Tom: We'll do it as long as NPR wants us. We have a great time talking to all those great people from all over the country.

Ray: Aside from having to sit next to my brother for an hour, it's the highlight of my week.

Tom: Until you can send fresh twenties as an attachment, use the following address: Car Talk Plaza, Box 3500 Harvard Square, Cambridge, MA 02238.

Ray: If you're sending cash, be sure to highlight that fact on the envelope so we remember to open it.

Tom: Looking for your 15 minutes of fame? Give us a call at 888 CAR TALK (888-227-8255) to ask your car question. For listeners outside the U.S., our number is (US Country Code) + 617-353-6350.