Big Red got waylaid

What a day it was, it really was such a day. I took off early this morning with my sister & her hubby to do our thing at the Flea Market.  Our day was interesting and I thought I'd probably write about it in this entry.

However, that got blown right out of the water upon my arrival home.

We pull into my driveway to find Joe sitting dejectedly on the side of the driveway...I looked around and didn't see the truck...where was Big Red?   We got out of the car, I started to ask him what was going on.  It seems he decided that he would put the truck in for rear shocks, and new rear tires.  He went to a "Chain type place" that he always goes to for work like that. 

Joe never had a problem with them before. He put the truck, which is a very pretty, well kept, constantly washed, oiled, pampered Dodge Ram four door in their shop in the morning and expected them to be done around 1PM.

Well, they must of been running real slow or something because he called and they kept stalling him telling him that it would be a little later.  Finally at 3 P.M. he walked the ten blocks over to the shop to check on Big Red.

The truck was done, Joe even sat down with the manager to talk about future work that he wanted done on it and the guy worked out a discount for him if he gave them all the work. They gave him a bill for the work done...it came to a little over $500.00.

  He got into the truck, pulled out of their parking lot into a very busy Park Blvd. (pick the busiest boulevard in your area) Their shop is on 63rd and Park..as he reached 64th and Park the whole back end of the truck started to shimmy & shake...the two back tires spun wildly off in two different directions, the back end of the truck hit the asphalt with a tremendous impact crushing God knows what in the rear of the truck.

Luckily Joe was in the right hand lane as he was headed to the Flea Market, he was able to control the vehicle but still ended up semi crosswide in the next lane, leaving two huge grooves in the street for quite a fewfeet.  Cars were screeching to a halt all over the place, I'm telling you an Angel was sitting on Joe's shoulder traffic is so bad on this road I still can't understand why he didn't get hit by another car.

Of course, the police showed up...but get this no police report because no one was hurt.  Joe left the cops with his poor truck and ran back to the "repair shop" to get them to come help and see what had happened to his truck. Turns out the mechanic did not put the lug nuts back on properly.

This was like adding insult to injury...it was only a month ago that a woman hit Joe in the back damaging his whole bumper.  Everyone else stopped because of something happening ahead of the traffic but she was on her cell phone and slammed into him going 40 miles an hour.  Her car caught on fire...Joe's truck only had the damaged bumper because of the tow package that he has on the end of the car.

This time too, it seems to Joe that the tow hitch saved him again.

Anyway, we had just picked the truck up on Friday after getting the new bumper installed.....the new bumper does not look new any more. Nor do the side panels, undercarriage, brake lines not working either...he had to coast to a stop. (Or should I say grind to a stop)

Now our dilema is they say they will check out the truck, what's wrong with it, and fix it.  The manager is going to get Joe a rental car to use for the duration of the work on the truck.

We still owe thousands on this truck, I'm afraid of what could still go wrong with it that might be unseen....like the motor mounts, or the engine block..stuff like that cracks, doesn't it? I'm also sure that the transmission got screwed.

I have to call our own insurance tomorrow, maybe they can advise us better...we have collision, fire & theft...but this whole thing is clearly negligence on the part of the mechanic.

I'm very grateful that Joe was not hurt and that no one else got hurt...wonder if any of you guys ever had some thing like this happen?

Quiet Nights & Strange Days

Sometimes I wonder about people.  How much craziness is out there?  I've been doing a bit of people watching lately.  In my own defense, it's because I'm trapped behind a table in a huge flea market unable to turn away from the vast array of humanity that parades in front of me each weekend.

I normally let people's shenanigans roll right off me, but I figured what the heck...write about it, because some of it is so funny I just had to laugh.

We've been doing pretty good at the market, selling odds and ends plus the denim booty bags.  Of course, everyone at the flea market is looking for a "bargain" if you have $2 on something they will say "Give you a dollar"...sort of like dangling a worm in front of a hungry fish, hoping you'll jump at the dollar.  Most times I cave and they get it cheaper.

My first sale of the day was to a little old Asian lady that wanted any jewelry piece for a dollar.  That was like all the English she knew..."You take $1.00?" After she came back three times I gave up and let her have it.

Well, all of a sudden, along comes this white vision - long gauzy white skirt, white shirt, white shawl, white shoes, white pocketbook and to complete the look a fedora style white hat with lots of, you guessed it, white feathers!  As she was passing our table she was announcing to everyone who could hear that she was the Angel of light, and she started to bless everyone. People just stood still and stared at her...she turned on her heels and went back from whence she came...a vision of white moving so fast as to be floating down the aisles of the flea market.

Moments later, I look up to see a small crowd at the other end of our aisle...no it wasn't the angel...it was two men in drag, each pushing a baby stroller that had a Maltese type doggy in each...the dogs were wearing vests and cowboy hats to match their owners. I love dolls could I get away with pushing a baby doll in a real carriage? I wonder.

Of course we had to have an irate customer too. We are selling these tiny little key chain type knives for a $1.00....a boy about twelve had come to the table and wanted to buy one, he was with a woman that appeared to be his mother.  We will not sell anything dangerous to a kid, the woman was asked does  he have your permission to buy this? She said yes. 

Well, about one hour later a rather large gentleman comes over to our table and confronts my brother in law...quite nasty about it too. "Are you the idiot that sold this to my son?" "Don't you know you are not allowed to sell knives to kids?" "I'm going to report you to the office for this, in fact, I'm going to look for a cop right now"...he had the woman with him that had given permission. Standing silent not saying a word.  We told him she gave permission for him to buy it, she denied doing so.  The guys starts screaming that his kid is brain damaged, a danger to himself and others, not allowed to have any object like a knife.  We gave him back the dollar and told him to leave us alone. My question is, if the kid was that bad what was he doing letting him roam around without supervision since whoever the woman was did not step up to the plate.  Oh, I forgot to mention when they came back the woman is holding a baby boa constrictor wrapped around her arm with an Timothy Leary smile on her face.

Then we had a lady who wanted to buy one of our bags, she picked it out, went to get her money and discovered her wallet was missing. She was a little elderly and was getting very upset because she was a tourist and all her ID was in the wallet.  My sister offered to walk back along the path she had taken through the market to backtrack.  They found that she had indeed left it at another vendors booth..but a woman had picked it up and told them that she would turn it in to the office.  So off to the office my sister and the lady went. Nothing turned in. We gave the lady my sister's card with her phone number just in case and she gave us her cell number.  She had additional money on her so she still bought the bag she liked from us.  But we felt bad hoping that the other people would do the right thing.   The lady called my sister later that night to tell her that the woman had called her and they were going to bring the wallet to her. The person explained that she didn't "trust" just leaving it to lost n found when she felt she could deliver it herself and know that it made it back to it's owner.

That made me feel good all over. Can't wait to see what happens this weekend.

Rain Rain...Go Away..Come back Another Day

Ever heard the saying "when it rains, it pours?"  Boy, were they ever right.  The Tampa Bay area and actually just a rather wide slice right across Pinellas County into upper Hillsborough got smacked with a horrendous storm yesterday.

I mean, it rained "biblical portions" evoking a thought from within me whether or not to seek higher elevations. The idea of an Ark was appealing too.

I awoke in the morning to the sound of heavy water cascading overhead...I quickly went to the kitchen to check the yard.  There was so much water coming off the roof that you could not even see out the windows.  Then I opened the front door a bit, it was very windy and the view was not much better. I could see that the water was rising, you have to step up a couple of steps to get into my house...the water was over the first step.

The phone rang, it was one of our friends checking if I was alright, as he knew Joe was working outside of our area.  His house was starting to see water creep on up to his front door and his backyard was totally flooded...he has a canal in back of his house but it had risen to within a few feet of his back door. I thanked him and told him to stay safe.

We had not had a good rainfall for almost a month, so the land was very dry...but when it rains like this it runs right off the land without percolating down into the water fields.

The weather was on constantly, it seems that a Bed, Bath & Beyond stores roof had collapsed due to the weight of the downpour.  The roof drains could not handle it fast enough to alleviate the weight of the water.  Looking at the devastation, it was a matter of luck that no one was seriously hurt or killed.  There were reports of several other collapses too.

I thought I had gotten by pretty good, we had sprung a few leaks in the kitchen ceiling - but it didn't look that bad.   Or so I thought, I woke up this morning to find 1/4 of my ceiling on the floor, what a mess!  Wet sheetrock, insulation and lord knows what forming a yucky mess on everything it touched.  

Well, I guess that's better than some here...some people wound up with two foot of water throughout their houses, plus drowned cars.

My sister called from Washington State last night, she asked how much did you all get? I told her 12".

"HOW much? she said.....yup 12" of rain...it's as if you took three months of the year's downfall, squeezed it into a 12 hour time period and let loose...

Hasn't happened before in the twenty years that we're here and I'm hoping that it will not again....

Just Wondering...

   It seems appropriate to use my fire breathing Dragon for this entry...this news story is just over the top. 

  I just finished reading a news article on a group of radical Muslims who are threatening hotel owners, boycotting some European goods, brandishing guns, searching for European's to kidnap - all over a published CARTOON. 

  Now, folks, I'm not really into ridiculing any religion that's out there...but, I know, that I have seen cartoons ridiculing God, Jesus, Moses etc.  Did we Christians threaten mayhem and murder?  Nope, don't think so. 

  I keep on hearing and I have been told that the Muslim faith is one of peace.  I want to know where the peace is?

It seems to me that there should be some common ground for all religions to achieve peace. 

  So, what's next?  More murder, mayhem and the like? Like a spoiled child laying on the floor screaming it's head off, kicking like mad to get it's way...that's my view.  

 What makes them think that their religion is so sacrosanct? I really think the rest of the world needs to stand up for themselves and tell them to back off. 

  These people are like the old fashioned school yard bully...you give in an inch and they literally take the whole dang yard.