My son bought a tape recorder at Sears when he was about 14 and it didn't work right. It would record, but it ran slower than the standard for tape recorders. If you recorded on it, then it would play it back at the slow rate that it recorded at, and it would sound fine. The only way you could tell it was bad was to play a prerecorded cassette tape. It, being recorded at the correct speed, would sound way too slow when played on this player. He usually recorded and played his own tapes, so he didn't notice the aberration and missed the warranty period. My son went back to the store, told them the story and asked for a replacement but they wanted nothing to do with it so we took them to small claims court.
The lawyer Sears sent against us lied and said that they had tried to contact my son and he wouldn't talk to them and that they spoke to his brother. When the judge asked for the name of the brother, I forget the name he said, but it was something like, "Bob." We never had a "Bob." The judge asked my son something that I can no longer remember. The judge used words that my son did not understand, so my son said, "No."
Only after we left the court did my son ask me what the judge had meant and I explained that he was asking if you would be willing to bring the recorder in and let him hear it play slow. We lost the case.
The guy who had lied rode down with us and another guy in the elevator and I told the guy that God heard him when he lied. I meant that God could hear him when he lied. But I was nervous confronting people in those days.
The guy said, "Are you calling me a liar?" I replied, "You know you lied and I know you lied and you know that I know you lied." The guy didn't respond to that. Later, after the other guy got off the elevator, the guy said to me, "You want to talk about this?" I answered, "Why should I talk to a liar?"
Professional liars -- funny people. I have noticed that a great many people are not bothered if you know they steal or lie, but they get upset when you say they steal or lie. What's up wit dat?
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Sacramento has a lot of Dutch elm trees, and back when this story takes place, a lot of Dutch elm disease. Every year, about July, the leaves turned brown and sticky smelly stuff dripped, dripped, off those trees, all day and all night. The sticky leaves fell to the ground and if the leaves got wet, that smelly sticky stuff turned into slippery, snot-on-a-doorknob slick. Walking, the leaves would stick to your feet like dragging toilet paper out of a bathroom on the bottom of your shoe. The stench was not pleasant at all. If the leaves were not wet, there was a slight powdery smell in the air -- like fine dust, only not smelling that good. Not good for asthmatics. You know what that dust was? Dutch elm disease is caused by a wee little beetle. Like all living creatures, the beetle shits. That dust was dried beetle shit. Everyone in Sacramento breathed that same dried beetle shit with every breath they took..
I hated those elms.
The Parks and recreation department would occasionally cut one down of the worst infected. To my eyes, they were all infected equally, but then I''m not an expert like some people are.
There were two huge elm trees on one side of our house, between the curb and the sidewalk. My walks and my lawn were covered with those smelly, stinky leaves, Finally one day they were finally going to cut them down, The two trees had blue paint sprayed on them as a mark for the cutters. They cut one down, not the other. I called up, asked why. Didn't get a good answer. Asked to speak to the guy that decides which trees get cut, which don't. He lives out of town, up north somewhere. "'sides, we don't cut them down, company from up north (popular place) cuts them down." Could I have their phone number? "Don't know it."
After many weeks of this kind of a run-around, I'm talking to the same guy. After a few minutes of the same old run-around, I asked, "Well who is it that can make the decision?" he said, "I'm the guy." Whyin hell didn't he tell me that the first time I asked? So I said, "Is that tree going to be cut down?" He says, "No." I says, "Thank you." Yeah - thanks for many weeks of a pointless run-around. You dork.
About a year later, Viola! They cut the tree down.
They wanted to plant another tree where they cut down the one, promised that I would get to pick the tree, within reason. Fine, I say. Then one day they came and planted a self-pruning London Plane tree -- one of the ugliest trees in God's existence. Sacramento also had a lot of these -- even more than they had elms. These trees had the horrible propensity of dropping heavy branches with absolutely no warning. No creaking, no breaking of the limb, just, bam! Down she comes.
I tried to carve a stick from one of these trees once and every few inches, the stick would break straight across. You could see good wood for a few inches, then a discolored line running right straight across the wood. This is where the limb would break. It would just separate. Besides that, in the fall, when the leaves turned, they would look dirty. So in late summer, Sacramento, which is famous for its trees, would be inundated with the most disgusting garden of trees one could ever hope to encounter. In the spring, beautiful. Summer, fall, winter, Blah!
Every other day or so they would send a big water truck to water my new tree. I fertilized it with a huge dose of nitrogen -- killed it of course. I figured they really couldn't do anything to me since I could just say that I was trying to help -- just fertilizing it. Isn't fertilizer good for plants?
So the tree died and they planted another one. I "fertilized" that one too, and before it died, the guy was out watering it and I was sitting on the back porch watching him and he was like, "Doodily do..dum de dum dum.." kinda lookin' around, holding the hose in one hand, just chillin' and he happened to glance up at me, we held eyes for awhile, I could see thoughts forming in his head, he wrapped up the hose, got in his truck, drove off and never came back. Hah! Bastards!
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Circuit City had a big ad in the Sacramento Bee Sunday paper for computers. We were looking for our first one. We went. We waited for the store to open, went in, told the salesman we were wanting to buy the advertised computer. He said they were all out. First time advertised, we were the first ones in there, they had sold them all. I feel so stupid now for believing that.
We were bait and switched to another computer -- cost a little more of course. Took it home, wouldn't work. Took it back, got another one. Coupla years later, needed a new hard drive. Lo and behold, one screw missing and wrong screw installed INSIDE the computer. We were sold a reworked computer disguised as new. Let it be said that never again have I ever stepped foot in a Circuit City store. It amazes me that a company -- any company that relies on customers for its continued economic health would treat customers like that. I guess their only salvation lies in an increasing birth rate, bringing into the fold new naive customers.
I once worked in a grocery store that was part of a shopping center. One night around Christmas time, it burned down. The entire shopping center burned down.
I was standing next to the owner when he was complaining to the meat cutter that the fire Marshall had told him the fire started on the wooden stairs leading down to the basement, He angrily declared, "How in hell could it have started there?" He didn't believe the fire Marshall.
A few years after this -- could have been five or so years, I happened to be thinking of this incident and a light lit over my head. I was the produce man and I had twenty or so four to six feet tall Christmas trees stacked right on that wooden stairway and I clearly remembered laying a lit cigarette on one of the steps. I burned down a shopping center!
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