Saturday, April 26, 2008

What's Wrong With A Taxi?

Tonight I found this posting on Craigslist. A friend of mine has been perusing the personals, and out of curiosity I checked out a few.

This posting was in the "Women Seeking Women" section oddly enough.

This is the verbage:

I am looking for someone who can pick up my wife and I (you must have a nice or average car) on edgewater in Clearwater at 6pm on Sunday and bring us to bon jovi, then pick us up when it is over and go out for some drinks. You must be the designated driver obviously, but you can spend some time talking with us and see where it leads. As we are looking for some new friends as well. We moved here 4 years ago and have been so busy outside of family we really don’t know anyone closely. I am willing to pay 150.00 to drive us there, pick us up and spend a couple of hours with us after the concert. I will be away from the computer from here on out and checking emails on my cell phone which has limited capability. So please leave phone # attach a pic and be serious about this.
Thanks,


Wow... I'm not even sure what to say. First of all, the pictures of this couple have the heads cut off and in one photo the man is grabbing the woman's boob.
The $150 to chauffeaur the couple to a concert doesn't sound bad on it's own, although if that's all they want - what about calling a cab?
If they expect a hot lady cab driver/sex buddy - shouldn't they at least invite her to the show, too? Excluding her seems fairly rude.
Spend a couple of hours with them after the concert??? So they can kidnap this person, torture them, and leave them left for dead off a freeway exit? This posting definitely has potential serial killing written all over it.
I'm sure this guy will definitely need to be constantly checking his cell phone for the barrage of emails he'll be getting.
In fact, I'm crafting my own response right now!

Wednesday, April 2, 2008

A Total Loss of the Weekend

For six years, I've had a bright blue Ford ZX2. It's not a particularly wonderful car. It rumbled loudly every time I drove it, had a bad window seal problem so driving at higher speeds popped my ears, and has horrible safety ratings.

But still, it was my car. Paid off and reliable. I was not looking for a new vehicle anytime soon. In fact, just the other day I was thinking that I'd be driving it for another three years or so. No mechanical problems. Last month I had the spark plugs changed and a new gasket kit put on by one of the Brighthouse mechanics who work down in our parking garage.

This past Friday, AJ came to visit me. On the street outside my complex a large bird smacked into the windshield of his Honda CR-V. It destroyed the windshield, leaving feathers stuck in the glass and shards lying all over the interior. AJ showed up with little cuts all over his arms and face - bleeding out from all of them.




We were then down to a single vehicle - mine.

So the next day, we decided to go to the beach to check out a skim boarding event that our crew was out at shooting for a story. We ate lunch with three of my coworkers, then walked a few blocks back to my car. I'd parked on a side street off the main strip. Running perpendicular to some roads are little drainage culverts, ditches, apparently they're called "Miami curves."

At the first intersection, I stopped for the sign, then proceeded to move forward. About three feet later, my little car bottomed out letting out a loud screech. The airbags deployed, hitting AJ and I. That broke my windshield. With the air pressure increase, the moon roof broke. The drivers side door broke in half and the window broke. The front axle bent, leaving one tire sticking out. All for going under 5 mph.

Several people standing on the corner saw the entire thing unfold. They asked us if we were okay, and one man said cars bottom out quite often and are damaged. He called the police.





The Pinellas County Sheriff's Office showed up, but would not issue a police report because technically, I didn't "hit" anything. Hello? I made her give me a card for information. I collected one of the witness' phone numbers and address. He lives on that corner.

The sheriff's deputy actually told me to try to drive the car back to my place, about 15 miles away. AJ and I managed to do this. With a broken windshield and deployed airbags.

For the next two days, I had no car. My insurance claim was taken, but the adjustor wasn't in until Monday. Saturday night, I'd gotten us tickets to see a comedian I like. We ended up ordering pizza ihstead.

Monday, I got a rental car while AJ waited for the Glass Doctor to come and fix his Muskogee Duck Destroyed windshield. The adjustor told me to start looking for another car, because mine is most likely totaled. A towing company was supposed to come either Monday afternoon or Tuesday morning to take my car to the insurance company's lot for inspection. It's now Wednesday and that still hasn't been done.

Yesterday I spent two hours at a Toyota dealership and found a car that I like. I put a deposit on it to hold the car, but it's completely refundable. Quite a bit needs to happen in order to get this whole process moving. The insurance company is slow as molasses.

I called the city of Indian Rocks beach to put in a complaint against those dips in the roads. There are no signs, it TOTALED my car, and other cars have been damaged. The guy I spoke with basically told me to screw off. This weekend I'm going to draft an official letter.

So now I wait. I really hate waiting.