True story...
Friend
@Plant_City_Mike tipped me off to the SnapOn CGA maybe a week ago. It was 90 minutes from me but I have a bbq friend who lives about 20 mins away from it so I secured it via messages and somehow he got her to bring it to his house. Done deal, I just have to drive 90 mins to go pick it up.
Then
@chiku18 msgs me about a like new 1964-'68 Texan with thumbscrews that he found, which happened to be between me and the CGA. It wasn't a high priority for me but since it was sort of on the way, I thought why not. Very few thumbscrews surface in FL. So I coordinate with the seller for a time between 6-6:30 tonight. Of course I left in rush hour traffic so it was stop and go for about 20 of the 40 miles to my first stop (Orlando). I'm driving down OBT and am getting within a quarter mile of the seller's house, and I notice lots of strip clubs, and lots of single 'ladies' walking the streets. GPS tells me to turn after Flash Dancer Orlando and before Cleo's Gentlemen's Club which I do. It's not an area you'd want to taking your kids trick-or-treating in. The house isn't where the GPS says it should be and it's dark out now. I call the seller to ask where his house is and he tells me he just sold the grill to a guy he thought was me. I give a big WTF and there's silence on his end for like 15 seconds. Then he says come over here and I see him waving. I pull into the overgrown driveway and dimly lit empty looking old house and start thinking
am I being set up? I get out but leave my truck running with the headlights on so I can try to see what's what. I get out and introduce myself and it's pretty obvious right away that he's drunk (smell) and strung out on something. I can see the kettle in the carport so I'm relieved at that. There was no car and just a bulb on inside the mostly empty house so I'm thinking he was a squatter and was selling off whatever he could find. He wanted $30, I offered $20, and he flipped out. He grabbed a second junker kettle with no legs but it had a nice rib rack and the grates for both kettles in it and yelled $35 for all of it. I said I didn't want it all but I would pay $30 for the Texan. He yells hell no it's $35 or nothing! I said something like
calm down, what the hell are you getting so mad about? Then I can feel my adrenalin pumping.He grabs the lid off the Texan and I thought he was going to throw it at me but instead he waves it around yelling Do you want it or not? I didn't want the side trip that turned into an hour to be for nothing, plus I figured I'd better "Rescue" these grills, so I paid the wack-a-do $35 and left quickly. Besides the still heavy traffic, the trip to get the CGA was uneventful thankfully. My BP and heart rate got back to normal and all is good lol.
So hopefully that's as bad as it will ever get for me on a CL transaction. In hindsight I probably should have passed by the crack house and just kept going. Next time. I'll get a few grill pics on here in a day or so. Big shout outs to Michael and Chiku for their hand-offs to me with all this. The SE crew rocks.
Topic: PICS ADDED: 3 hours of traffic jams, strip joints, hookers and a crackhead (Read 3453 times)