Many years ago--which means more than 10 and well past the statute of limitations (I double checked this time), Snob Duben and I went car shopping. This was before our partnership had imploded, and before his vendetta against me. Back before Ponzi schemes were common knowledge and when banks and investment houses weren't too big to fail. We were taking in far more revenue than expenditures, so we had a little bit of pocket change available to add vehicles to our fleet. Because of the nature of our first contract--I didn't have my Law & Order degree at that time--Snob was the recipient of 78.23% of our profits. This was rectified when our partnership was disbanded.
We stumbled into a Volvo dealership that had once been an Indian burial ground, or some serious bad mojo of a different nature had occurred there because the dealership had a cloud hanging over it the likes of which I've never seen before or since. Any time an insurmountable problem occurs at AcMo, I always think of this dealership and remember that the situation could be worse. We could be that dealership. Now that I think about it, there's no way that place is still in business. It's probably a vacuum cleaner repair factory now. I'll have to ask Snob about it when we negotiate our new contract soon.
Bad mojo doesn't quite convey the situation with enough descriptive force. Imagine walking underneath a ladder with a black cat while stepping on a crack and telling lies that catch your pants on fire. OK, now imagine all of that happening every time you went to do anything. Take a pencil out of the desk drawer and get a splinter under your fingernail. Turn on the water in the restroom faucet and watch the toilet overflow. Accept a car on trade and watch it burst into flames the moment after the contract has been executed. Yeah, it was that bad. Because we were stupid, we didn't heed the warning signs and stuck around to see if Volvo had any vehicles of interest. Spoiler alert: There weren't any.
The whole ordeal began to unravel the moment we met the salesperson. Because of the nature of our core business, Snob and I have amassed data on a lot of vehicles. We call it our Big Data file, but it does not do analysis or monitor anything. It is, as the name implies, a big file with data on cars in it. We spent a lot of time studying our Big Data file and learning everything we could. Therefore, it was no small shock to our systems when our salesman started reading the brochure to us. We received no insight or commentary, it was a deadpan complete recitation of the text. We already had the damn brochure in our file. We needed it to stop, but he just kept reading.
It turns out the salesman knew about the doom cloud, and that was why he wasn't giving this sales pitch any effort whatsoever. It took him 30 minutes to finish reading the brochure and all the various footnotes. Then he opened up to us. Just five short days before our visit, another salesman--who sat at the very desk we were seated in front of--fell down the stairs and suffered a traumatic brain injury. No one could supply a reason for the fall other than bad luck.
Snob is fond of proclaiming he is not superstitious, but I could tell he was beginning to feel it too. He tries to start fires whenever he gets nervous. I think this is a result of his preferred spider hunting method because he is afraid of spiders. Let's be honest though, spiders are frightening on a dozen levels. That's why they need to be killed with fire. A lot of fire. In fact, there's no such thing as too much fire when spiders are concerned. We both knew bad things would happen to us if we stayed in that dealership. We acted with swift and decisive logic when we asked for a test drive.
The salesman hemmed and hawed before agreeing to let us take out one of Volvo's super-exciting non-drowsy inducing quasi-sports sedans if we did something for him. He whispered the next part, so I couldn't hear all of it, but I swear he said, "Please take me with you. I can't come back here. It isn't safe for us anymore. We're all going to die if we stay here." I nodded my head as if I understood, but I wasn't even sure of what he said.
We waited another half hour before our supposed super awesome stealth performance sedan arrived, but we were only greeted with disappointment. They didn't have any in stock, so we had to drive a regular model. I almost refused to get in, but Snob was adamant that we do this. The three of us jumped into the car and we went on our test drive. The salesperson surprised us by reading from another brochure. He must have had that one in his pocket because I never saw him grab anything when we were headed out the door. We were going to have to figure out a way to remove him from the vehicle if he was going to do that the whole drive.
Turns out that problem was not going to be realized. We had only traveled two city blocks before the CEL illuminated and the car began to smoke from both ends. I hate it when that happens, but it was to become a regular AcMo occurrence. I'm at the point now that I worry something is wrong if I don't see smoke coming out of some part of a car.
The salesman urged us to keep driving and take him--and us--as far from the dealership as possible. We pointed out that the vehicle was smoking quite a lot, and that it wasn't prudent to continue driving. Also consider that the smoke was so thick that we couldn't see in front of the car, and the rear was just as obscured. We were rolling in our own personal smoke cloud. We didn't think it safe to continue, but our salesman screamed that it was imperative we press on regardless. Who are we to argue with an automotive expert? Snob drove that sedate Volvo sedan for all it was worth. We looked like the chase car in some Hollywood film that had no budget and couldn't afford to use real performance cars for the action scenes. We were up driving on sidewalks, going the wrong way on one-way streets, ramming other cars, and some other stuff. It was quite a sight. That was just how Snob test drives cars. He considers roads to be for everyone else and the sidewalk is his express lane. It occurs to me now that Snob may not even have a driver's license. I never verified that when doing my super thorough background check.
We made it to a K-mart parking lot before the wheels fell off. That was for the best anyway since the tires were on fire. It would only be a matter of time before the fire attached to the wheels and melted them. Snob is hard on cars. The good news is that the CEL went off when the car's main power line was cut when the telephone pole fell onto the hood. We were out of the car at that point, but because the child safety locks were on, the salesman was trapped in the back seat. We tried to get to him, but we just couldn't. He emerged from the trunk a few minutes later still reading from that brochure. He acted as if nothing had happened. I suppose to him this was just another test drive.
The salesman thanked us for saving him, and asked if we could keep the whole incident just between us. We agreed and parted ways. Volvo didn't have anything suitable for our purposes anyway. We never did make it back to that dealership. I fled the district later that evening, and Snob soon went into hiding. Residual bad effects from the cloud of doom, I guess.
Oh yeah, I remember what happened to that dealership now. A news helicopter crash landed on the roof while filming footage for a story about the area's very own Bermuda triangle. The roof collapsed of course, and then just before repairs were to commence, the whole building fell into a sinkhole that closed on itself. This happened on a Monday, so there wasn't anyone there to get injured. The cars were never found. That's probably best since they weren't very good cars. I feel for whichever business inhabits that land now.
Turns out I discovered that the cloud of doom followed us back to AcMo. I can now understand why we were having so much trouble. I have to figure out how to get rid of this cloud and quick!
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