[SORRY ABOUT THE LACK OF PICTURES. I'M IN A HUGE HURRY TONIGHT, SO I CAN'T ADD ANY OF THEM UNTIL MONDAY. THIS IS ANOTHER OLDIE FROM MYSPACE, ONE OF THE LAST ONES HOPEFULLY. IF YOU HAVEN'T READ IT YET, ENJOY!]
I’ve had quite a few problems of late. Far too many to go into here. I’m sure many of you already know them, anyway. So it wasn’t really a surprise when all of my anger came tumbling out of me on Friday night. It was like I was a bottle of hate, and someone finally popped the cork off and turned me upside down. I try to keep optimistic about things. I kept my anger in when I was arrested, and I tried to face my dental problems with, heh, a smile.
But when the problem with my car’s tires reoccurred, I just couldn’t grin and bear it. No, it was time for doom and gloom and anger. A lot of anger. In fact, I would call it bile. Yes, bile is the perfect word for what came pouring out of me last night.
A couple of weeks ago, when the weather conditions were really bad, my car started fishtailing again. For those of you who have been around this MySpace page for a while, you might recall me venting my spleen about my bald tires about a year ago. Well, since then, I’ve had to get them replaced several times. Since my mom and grandparents have been driving my car, the tires have needed to be replaced at least twice more, most recently in August. These instances were for various incidents, but it is mostly because when other people drive my car, it starts falling apart. I don’t understand this, but this is what was happening.
Two weeks ago, when the fishtailing began again, we examined my tires to discover that after a mere FIVE MONTHS, the back tires were completely fucking bald. FIVE FUCKING MONTHS. There is no reason for something like this to happen, except that the product is DEFECTIVE.
“We have to get new tires,” my grandfather told me.
“With what money?” I asked. “All of my money is tied up in lawyers and dentists.”
“I can’t afford it,” he said. “Don’t you have emergency money?”
“Not anymore. You can ask the lawyers and dentists about that.”
“The car is not safe,” he said.
“I drove that fuckin’ thing through worse winters than this on bald tires,” I said.
And that was the end of the conversation. Things have been a bit drier around here since, so we haven’t had any problems. But Gramps isn’t one to let something like this go. Ever since he hit an age where he could be defined as “elderly,” he’s been taking advantage of being a shriveled up old man. If something goes wrong, he puts on his old man act, and he gets whatever he wants, especially if he’s dealing with a young woman. Even at 83 years of age, Gramps is an incredible flirt.
But there were no young women at the Dealership That Shall Remain Unnamed. No, just a bunch of young to middle-aged men working in service. Unbeknownst to me, while I was at work on Monday, Gramps went over to the dealership, and he put on his old man act to see where it would lead him, hoping that the destination would be two brand new tires for free.
For once, the old man act did not work, and the service guys were blaming him for being a bad driver and hitting potholes and such.
Whenever the old man act doesn’t work, Gramps switches gears to crazy old man, which is what he did in this case. He unloaded all of his anger on these service guys, he demanded to see their supervisor, and when everyone still refused to give in to his demands, he shouted at them that their product was defective, and he refused to leave until the car was made safe for driving.
It took him four hours, but they finally surrendered. Gramps received his satisfaction, and we had two brand new tires on my car for free. Cool, huh?
Fast forward to last night. When my mom and grandfather picked me up from work, I noticed there was a strange sound coming from the back of the car. No one knew what it was. It couldn’t be the tires. They’re brand new.
We went back to Elmhurst, and we were headed for McDonald’s for dinner when I heard a tremendous snap in the car, and we started bouncing erratically. We quickly pulled over onto a side street and examined the back of my car.
The wheel on the rear passenger side of my car was MISSING THREE FUCKING STRUTS. Three out of four. The only thing holding the wheel onto the car was A SINGLE STRUT.
My opinion: the car had all four when Gramps left the dealership. Over the course of the week, two struts came off while driving. What I had just heard was the final strut breaking. It wasn’t even a complete week from the tire transplant. My conclusion: the service guys fucked up. Big time.
Let me emphasize the importance of this: had that last strut popped off while we were on the expressway, WE WOULD PROBABLY BE DEAD RIGHT NOW. And maybe we would have brought a few other drivers with us. Perhaps it would have been a FINAL DESTINATION-type chain effect. The image of us smeared all over the Eisenhower made me sick to my stomach. Not because of fear. No, it was anger. We were lucky we were just on York Road at the time.
As my grandfather and I hovered over the wheel, I let loose with every single curse word I knew, and I think I made a few up, too. I was so angry I wanted to punch something, anything. My knuckles itched to connect with something. The people who lived on the corner of York and Jackson probably thought I was a madman, and I wouldn’t blame them one bit if they thought to put the chain on their doors. I was a raving fiend. I cursed the dealer and every cocksucker who worked there. I cursed their families and their pets and everyone who ever met them. I don’t remember being so furious in a very long time. Usually, I bottle everything up and take it in stride. Well, the bottle broke that night.
When I was finally out of air, muttering incoherencies under my breath, Gramps gave me a pat on the shoulder. “Those motherfuckers,” he said, shaking his head. “Think they did this on purpose?”
I said yes, but in all honesty, they probably weren’t that stupid. Maybe they’d fiddle with something else, but I didn’t think they would purposely do something that would endanger anybody.
When I calmed down long enough to use complete sentences, I called my insurance company, and they called a towing company. The tow was free of charge, which was good. Since the dealer locked up at night tighter than a nun’s butthole, there was no way we could tow it there. We had to bring it home, and then have it towed to the dealer in the morning.
When the tow truck guy tried pulling the car up onto the bed, the wheel in question locked, so some of the rubber peeled off before we could get it on the truck. Even though the drive was short, the driver and I had a weird conversation that ran from the dipshits that worked in service at the dealer to his friend’s DUI case to him witnessing a domestic dispute at the courtroom to how pit bulls get a bad rap. We ran that gamut in about five minutes.
The next day, Gramps tried his old man routine over the phone, and the dealer was having none of it. The service guys said they’d look at the car, but there was no way in hell they were going to tow it in for free. After arguing for a while, we gave up and tried my insurance company. It seems that I used up my only tow for the month, so we had to pay $110 for it.
(As an aside, it seems that certain numbers have been popping up in my life of late. Three lawyers, three judges, three dentists. I paid $110 for a sonic toothbrush that is supposed to restore my receding gums, and now I paid the exact same fee for a tow truck. Am I living THE DAVINCI CODE, or something?)
Anyway, as we waited for the tow truck, I started going over what I was going to say to the cocksuckers at the dealership when we got there. I was still full of bile, and I wanted to spew it all over the service motherfuckers. I had a whole new stream of curse words I was working on, and I was eager to use it on them. They put my family in danger, and I wanted satisfaction from the cuntfaces. If they didn’t give us what we wanted, I was going to threaten them with a lawsuit. I don’t know if my lawyers handle civil cases, but if they didn’t, I was prepared to find someone who would. The vicious things I had in mind to say would have made Al Swarengen of DEADWOOD fame blush. To make matters worse, I was hungover. They would only get more bile because of this little factoid.
The tow truck guy arrived, and Gramps knew him. It seems that he knows just about everyone in Elmhurst. And he’s not that civic minded, either. He just knows everyone. As it turned out, the driver had come for Gramps before. On the way over to the dealer, they talked back and forth. Gramps remembered that the driver was from Rockford, and the driver remembered Gramps telling him that I was an Elmhurst College student. We talked school for a while. I told him I was class of 2000, and he said that he’d given political science at the college a try, but it didn’t work out. As for now, he was getting ready to move down to Georgia, because he was tired of the horrible winters around here. Gramps told him to stop by Ft. Bragg-—and then he corrected himself with Ft. Benning--while he was there.
“I know all about that place,” the driver said. “I was stationed there.”
“Me, too,” Gramps said.
“Wow. Small world. You mentioned Ft. Bragg. Were you there, too?”
“I sure as hell wasn’t Airborne,” Gramps said. “Those guys were crazy.”
The driver laughed. “That’s right. You know those guys get steak and eggs every morning?”
“And then they go jumping out of planes,” Gramps said. “Crazy.”
“Yeah. Meanwhile, us at Ft. Benning, we were getting powdered eggs.”
“SOS,” Gramps said, and the two of them broke up laughing.
We pulled up in front of the dealership, and when Gramps and I got out, I noticed someone inside was looking disapprovingly at the tow truck. I figured it was some sales jag off who was scared that something like that would scare customers away. Fuck him.
As we headed for the service entry, the guy inside popped his head out of the showroom and he said to the driver, “Is that for service?”
“Yeah, but the wheel’s about to pop off. I’m going to ask where they want us to drop it off.”
“Okay.” And then he turned to us and flashed a smile. “Come on in."
I’m at a loss for words to describe what happened in that moment. Let me remind you that I hate politicians with a passion. They’re filthy scumsucking douchebags, almost as low as pedophiles and just a rung above alcoholics. But every once in a while, I speak with someone who has met a politician, and they tell me that in person, these people have an overwhelming charisma which makes it impossible to hate them.
I have always thought this was bullshit, until I met this guy. He wasn’t even a politician, and he exuded what I can only call presence. It was like a supernatural force baking off of him, and I couldn’t help but like him immediately. Over the course of our conversation, he said EXACTLY what I wanted to hear, and he said it with such charisma that I couldn’t detect a lie. He said all the right things, and to all appearances, he meant them all.
It turns out that he is actually the owner of the dealership, which used to be his father’s. When he gave his business card to my grandfather, Gramps recognized the name. It turns out that his father used to be one of his customers back when he was a clothing salesman. Not only that, but the owner’s nephew worked with Gramps at the very same clothing store. The next thing you know, Gramps and the owner are practically best friends. They started talking about people they knew, most of whom had passed away. Then, they started talking about vacations, and wouldn’t you know it? Gramps used to work for the travel agency the owner’s family used to book those vacations. In fact, the owner was friends with the people who ran the agency.
See what I mean about Gramps knowing everyone?
The owner then escorted us over to service, and he proceeded to mediate between Gramps and the service guys. Remember that catalogue of curses I’d come up with to use on the service guys? By the time we were in front of them, and the owner was working his charismatic magic, I had forgotten each and every one of them. I’d even forgotten “cocksucker.” Lawsuit? What lawsuit?
The owner politely and gently dressed the service guys down, and he said to Gramps that they’d have a look at the wheel and see what they could do. He then escorted us to the waiting room.
Ah, the waiting room. My old friend. It was filled with people, but we found someplace to sit down. Gramps watched some TV, and I cracked open a book. (Jones and Campbell’s BEST NEW HORROR 3, in case you were wondering.) I quickly cast my gaze around and was pleased to find that the woman who had asked about my chest hair was not present. In fact, these people looked pretty normal, so I didn’t expect any weirdness from them.
Soon, the owner came back and apologized profusely. They had no idea how something like this could happen, and they were going to fix it free of charge. It was going to take an hour and a half because they had to send out for the struts, but they would have us out of there as soon as possible. He then shook our hands, and he wished us luck.
I went to the bathroom, and as I urinated, I thought about the nature of politicians, and I thought that the owner would make a killing at the business. Had I been manipulated? For what purpose? To make sure that if I need a new car, I’ll come to him? Or was he just a good guy?
I hear that Bill Clinton has this exact same charisma, that people in his presence are overwhelmed by him. I guess it’s just something that doesn’t translate over television, you just have to be in the same room with him as he looks into your eyes and shakes your hand.
I’ve never been so completely comforted by someone before, and it made me slightly uneasy. It still does, as I type this up. But I know that if the owner ever ran for office, I would vote for him. Weird.
True to his word, it took ninety minutes EXACTLY before the mechanic came in to give us the keys to my car. Note that I said it was the mechanic, not one of the service guys. I guess they chickened out and didn’t want to face the wrath of Gramps again.
We went through the showroom to give our thanks to the owner again, but he’d stepped out. On our way to the door, I noticed that the face of every salesman was pointed in the same direction. It filled me with a weird sense of dread, as if I were watching INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS. It was like they were thinking with the same mind.
When I followed their gaze to see what they were looking at, I saw an incredibly hot woman bent over, rooting through the back of her SUV. I turned back to the salesmen, and their lust was painted on their faces. None of them had clustered together, so I got the impression that they’d noticed this spectacle independent of one another. Yet their expressions were all the same. Paint-by-numbers faces. Would they look differently if they knew I was watching them? Probably. I don’t know. I just wanted to get out of there.
Gramps and I got into the car and headed for the nearest McDonald’s, because I still had a hangover, and I needed the magical Double Cheeseburgers to cure it. Failing that, there were still energy drinks. At least the car was fixed, and the future looked a little brighter.
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