Sanitized News
Frequent readers might remember I emphasis that most car
sales involve two buyers, the folks driving away with the happy tag on the back
of the car, and the lender who will actually own the car for the next XX
months.
Recently Tricolor collapsed. This long and detailed
article does an excellent job of dissecting the nuts and bolts.
MORE
Where the sanitizing occurs is this. Tricolor’s specifically targeted illegal
immigrants. Why isn’t that a central part of this otherwise excellent article?
Car Story
The Bison Mount and Speeding Tickets.
For several years I worked for a former professional bull
rider who became a car dealer. Within the industry, he was known as, “Little
Hitler”. We joke if he fired me more times that I quit. Two Type A
personalities with temper issues and strong opinions often lose their cool.
My main duty was organizing off site sales. We didn’t hold them in the winter so I got, “Other
duties as assigned”.
Steve and his second wife lived large. A 3,000 sq ft log
mansion was part of it and they decorated with animal mounts. One was a bison
shoulder mount. About once a year insects would emerge from inside. Why? Nobody
seemed to find a solution.
They had this bison mount at a high end consignment
store, The Armadillo, off I-70 in
Wheatridge, when the insects hatched. Management demanded Steve remove it post haste
so he told me to go get it.
I was driving my favorite stealth vehicle; a white
minivan with the seats removed, and picked up the mount. Driving away I got
stopped for speeding. The officer was older and had that cynical cop look about
him. He came up to the window and saw a bison behind me staring at him. He
jumped away then came back.
My papers were in order. He wanted to know about the
bison mount. After hearing my explanation, he just waved me on with the usual
warning and walked back to his cruiser.
A once in a career moment for him?
As always, YMMV
9 comments:
What an excellent Bison Head story! Mine is less exciting, but still. For years I'd fly to Calgary from Dallas to see my sons and I'd stay at the downtown Hyatt. It had this neat bar with a big fire and a bison head above it. You get the vibe. Nice, Western style and an LSP Christmastide tradition to sit at the fire beneath the bison with a glass of the right stuff.
But not anymore. I went back there last year for a look around in November. The bar was there, so was the fire, but no BISON. I asked them why and got some nonsense about the environment and "indigenous peoples." Well, they lost my custom. But guess what? I found the missing mount in the window of an army surplus store not too far away, in Inglewood and almost bought it.
I feel there's a parable in this.
Merry Christmas!
"indigenous peoples."
The grievance industry is always on the hunt. I can't remember seeing accomplished people going that route. Isn't it usually people with little to show for their lives finding something to give them some power?
Glad you liked the story.
A co-worker and I went out to Salt Lake City on business and with an afternoon free, drove out to Antelope Island to play tourist. There is a buffalo herd there and we found it. My co-worker had never seen buffalo before so I stopped the car so he could have a look and he started to get out of the car. What the hell are you doing, I asked, they'll kill you. He didn't believe me. He didn't think the park would allow them to roam freely around hiking trails and camp sites if they were dangerous and was bound and determined to get a close look. I had visions of having to call the boss to say, well, I had to medivac Jeff today because he got buffalo stomped and was a little concerned about how that conversation might go. Finally, I got tired of trying to save his life and said, yeah, I'm just kidding, never mind that they're wild animals that weight two tons, they're basically big hairy cows so go pet 'em, what's the worst that could happen, etc., etc. and that encouragement, not the immense size of the great hairy beasts, was what made him get back in the car. His wife, when she heard about it, was livid and the boss was pissed at me because he thought that I was the responsible one. No, really! Good times.
The old mountain men had good advice. "Don't go bothering something that ain't bothering you". You were being responsible by using reverse psychology to keep a damned fool from being a damned fool.
In his defense, he was working quite hard at it!
Overachiever
Snort... now if a promotion had been involved... Re Tricor, I noticed that. Interesting that part of the story was NOT covered.
Little Hitler and I had an agreement, rare in the car biz. I was on salary, not commission. Many, many off the wall assignments. The one inflexible condition; keep it legal.
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