Adventures of Redneck Rick Moranis & Scruffy, and other tales from the computer shop

[Sandman]

I used to own & operate a computer repair shop and this thread will have stories from it. Most prominently there will be stories about a couple characters who worked for another business with which I shared the building. I call them Redneck Rick Moranis (RRM for short) and Scruffy. There's also Car Boss, Valve Boss, Queen Natitsya (Valve Boss's Ukrainian mail-order wife), Buttgirl, and some regular customers like Interrobang and Cheeto Pockets.

Coming soon, when I get time to dig through my archived posts on SA so I don't have to try to remember and write them again.

[Sandman]

The building my computer shop was in used to be a car dealership from the 80s, in a shitty part of town where businesses don't seem to last more than a couple years. The surrounding neighborhoods were low class and there were only a few businesses nearby that got some traffic, but not enough to consider them anchors. The building was old and neither the property owner nor the sub-leasing business would pay for any maintenance or cosmetic improvements. Not an ideal retail spot, but it had plenty of parking and the rent was fairly cheap considering Internet and utilities were covered. Plus it had a garage with a lift so I could work on my car. So I liked it, at first.

I shared the building with a valve distributor and service company, which sub-leased office space to me. They originally owned the computer shop but it was leaking money due to mismanagement and shitty techs so the owner wanted to get rid of it. Fortunately it didn't take me long to recover it from its shitty reputation. Co-habitating the space wasn't so bad. They occupied the back offices and had no foot traffic; it was all service calls and sales over the phone. But they did tend to wander over to my space wanting to gab.

Valve Boss and Queen Natitsya

The valve service techs and the office/sales manager would all come over to bitch about their jobs and their boss, who I will call Valve Boss, but they were pretty nice and sometimes brought me food. Valve Boss seemed okay to me, except he seemed to start drinking every day at noon and was always coming in with bottles in brown paper bags. That explained a lot of the complaints I heard.

The worst one to deal with was Valve Boss's young Ukrainian wife Queen Natitsya. She always pulled up in a Mercedes blasting some loud ass euro techno and stormed into the building, shouting in Ukrainglish and acting like she owned the place and everyone in it. It took a while but eventually she learned that I don't put up with that shit and she started treating me with respect. Me charging her husband twice my normal rates to fix her iPhones because I added on the asshole tax may have had something to do with her mood change. We got along okay then, and she had some rockin' titties and a tendency to wear see-thru tops, so that was nice.

All of the valve co employees save one service tech were gone by the end of the year, which was about 3 months after I moved in. I began working for Valve Boss as an office assistant, which was difficult while running a computer shop by myself, especially considering it was a whole new world to me. But I was eager for a challenge and to learn new things, and went well beyond my assigned duties. I spent a lot of long nights going through service manuals and old project paperwork and googling "what even is a valve" so I could some day be the Valve Boss I was destined to be. Valve Boss saw that I was working myself to death so he hired another assistant that I will call Buttgirl.

Buttgirl

Buttgirl was a young married woman who was kind of ditzy but fun to work with. And she had one heck of a butt. Queen Natitsya didn't like the previous office manager just because she was a young-ish, attractive-ish woman who worked for her husband, and for that same reason she really hated Buttgirl. Valve Boss told her that Buttgirl was my personal assistant that I hired myself but that didn't help much. So to help his marital woes I let her work out of my office, which didn't stop Queen Natitsya from mean-muggin' but did get her off Valve Boss's back about hiring girls with good butts.

Shortly thereafer, Valve Boss's quest for more money lead him to seek out another sub-leasee. An old guy and three backwater knuckleheads came in to rent the front office I wasn't using and half of the garage to run a small used car dealership. Dealership licensing rules required their business to be physically separated from mine and the valve co, so we had to put up a temporary wall until the inspectors did their inspecting. Unfortunately this wall blocked us from being able to access the back offices without walking around the outside of the large building.

So, in exchange for a temporary discount on my rent, we moved some filing cabinets and such into my office, making it very cramped. To add to the inconvenience, Valve Boss and his wife went on a month-long trip to Ukraine and he took the key to his big fancy office with him, which meant Buttgirl was stuck working in my office. Fortunately we got along well and it wasn't too awkward even though we were practically rubbing up against each other as we worked in the tiny space. I started paying her to be my computer repair intern, not because I needed one, but because we were packed so tightly together that my computer stuff was in her way so she may as well help me with it.

One night Buttgirl sent me a picture, and it was a picture of her butt. She *claimed* it was intended for her husband who was out of town for work. But after I told her that it's a nice butt, she sent me more pics of said butt. Working with her in that little office after that became, uh, a bit hard. But we managed with only minimal butt-touching, mainly because customers kept coming in to interrupt us.

Despite both of us working with the added difficulty of carnal temptation, things were going very well for both businesses. I made lots of sales and handled several valve emergencies, and many computers were fixed and sold.

Also during this time, the car dealership folks were coming and going. The only one I met during that time was the owner, Car Boss, who was a friendly old man who seemed like he was too nice to be a car salesman. The others I only occasionally heard from behind their wall. One of them talked loudly in a Southern hick accent about, among other things, "that piece of ass next door".

Since Valve Boss told me that my rent would be free that month, I gave Buttgirl a nice Christmas cash bonus. And she sent me another picture of her butt.

When Valve Boss returned from his trip he complained that it looked like we hadn't been doing anything in his absence. His reason for thinking this was that there weren't papers and file folders stacked all over the place like there normally is when he's there to micromanage. He was a little relieved when I showed him a bunch of sales, but then he asked for the month's rent. I reminded him he told me rent was free while he was out. He denied ever saying such a thing and insisted I misunderstood him. So I gave the greedy old fuck the money and stopped putting any effort into the valve biz after that, except for the effort that it took to stack papers everywhere to make it look like I was busy.

He also cut Buttgirl's hours so she quit her job. Her butt, once healthy and glowing, now withers with neglect.

It was around that time that the wall blocking off the hallway to the other offices was removed and the car flippers officially moved in. Enter: Redneck Rick Moranis and Scruffy.

To be continued.

[Sandman]

customer: BRO you told me you swapped the hard drive!
me: I did, why, what's wrong?
customer: if you did then why is my windows still 64 bit?
me: I..I don't...*brain breaks*

[Sandman]

The car guys were great entertainment. I could hear most of what they were saying from down the hall, and they were all strongly opinionated and very dumb, and also lazy as hell. The only one I ever saw out on the lot trying to sell cars was the little high strung redneck that reminded me of Rick Moranis, hence Redneck Rick Moranis. The rest of them would just sit around and bitch about how this location isn't as busy as wherever they came from, and talk shit about RRM or whoever else wasn't present. Originally there were 5 of them but one of them quit after a heated argument over who was going to clean up an oil puddle that no one wanted to admit leaving on the shop floor. Another one stopped coming in as much because he got tired of being asked to do stuff when all he wanted to do was buy cars at auctions for resale. So that just left Car Boss, RRM, and a gruff old guy I called Scruffy because he reminded me of the janitor on Futurama. But really he was more like Sam Elliott with brain damage.

Redneck Rick Moranis

At first, RRM would only come over and say hi if he wanted to use my entrance to the shop in the back since it was quicker than walking around the back of the building. In return for me giving him a free pass to use my door to the garage, he offered me some of his pizza, which I declined. But that night I was working late and a little drunk and ended up eating his leftover pizza from the fridge. The next day he was very upset that someone ate his pizza, and was throwing around tools and cursing while working on a car in the back much more loudly than usual, and I'm pretty sure there was some sobbing. An old lady customer heard him and said "oh he must be working on a Honda, that poor man." So I offered to buy him another pizza which he reluctantly accepted because he was hungry and had no money for food. That's when I learned that RRM was dirt poor and working for next to nothing, because he had serious self-esteem problems and a very low sense of self-worth, and let Car Boss take advantage of him. So I'd occasionally buy him lunch and I became his best friend.

Scruffy

Scruffy wouldn't say much to me at first. He didn't say much, period, but gave me the impression that he didn't like me. And it was mutual after one of my customers told me she was pretty sure he was hanging around outside of the bathroom while she was in it and listening to her pee. But then I heard an interaction between him and his boss, where he was arguing over whose job it was to lock up at night. Car Boss said it's the job of the last person to leave, but Scruffy disagreed. And he kept interrupting him to remind him that he doesn't understand fancy words, so Car Boss kept having to dumb his speech down like he was talking to a child. He'd always say "I don't know nothin' about that" until someone started speaking monosyllabically to him. So I gathered that he wasn't quite right in the head. That's why Car Boss gave him a pass on his creepiness. That and he worked for $100/wk because he was on disability and only had the job so he had some place to go every day.

Now that I've introduced the characters, I'm just gonna copy some of my posts from an archived chat thread on Something Awful and hope there's enough context for them.

[Sandman]

Redneck Rick Moranis (the little guy who works at the car dealership next door) had a meltdown because he left his keys in his boss's truck, and his boss was at a car auction 30 miles away and wasn't coming back. After Scruffy consoled him and offered to take him to where his boss is so he can get his keys, he instead decided to drive there in one of the lot cars. He got about half way there and the car started spewing coolant, so he limped it back to get another car. His side of the building was locked when we came back, because Scruffy finally learned that it's his job to lock up if he leaves and no one else is there. RRM didn't have his keys so he came around to my side, but my door was locked because it was after my closing time and I was in the back. The door is glass but the tint is really dark, so I could see him but he couldn't see me. After trying the door and yelling a series of "aw hell naw"s, he went to a nonsensical (and hilarious) rant before just standing there slowly banging his head against the door.

I let him in after a few head bangs because I'm a good guy like that.



A customer brought in a laptop that I had just worked on a few days ago.

guy: I thought I paid all that money to have a solid state drive put in.
me: Yeah, that and install Windows and transfer your data.
guy: *ejects cd tray and looks at me*
me: ....ok?
guy: Where the hell's it at?



Just had to put up with the lady who thinks her husband is communicating with another woman via wifi transmitters implanted in his hand. Whenever he covers his mouth and coughs, that's *THE SIGNAL*! And all the signals bouncing around in her house are making her burp and making her dogs sneeze. I told her it might be ghosts but she said I was being silly. She's coming in tomorrow to have me transfer a bunch of recordings of her yawning and burping and her dogs sneezing and barking.



I just took a peek at how the valves business is going out of curiosity. I haven't done much with it ever since new office lady was hired.

We're past due about $70k to our main vendor.
We only have roughly $30k in outstanding invoices.
It looks like about 3/4 of the things we've shipped haven't been invoiced.
We're making about $97 on a $12k order.
If the office lady needs to email something, she prints it, scans it, and then emails the upside-down PDF.

I guess I should bring this to the boss's attention. He just had an implantable cardioverter defibrillator put in so if I give him a heart attack it'll reboot him. S'all good.



This place is a crazy magnet. Just had a visit from the lady who thinks her husband has implanted her with listening devices and sneezes into his hand to send wifi signals to his ex wife. Then I had a new crazy person who just wanted to speak computer gibberish in a never ending run on sentence, like "my C7000 has dual processors that create the encryption bridge but some IT teacher was at my house and desoldered the copper wire so the bridge is running comcast and centurylink but not at the same time and now it's looking for the boot but I rooted my phone on someone else's computer and there's these apps that scan for credit cards and I ran some tests with norton and I'm probably down $100,000 because it was saying there was a rogue startup and..."



I'm kinda drunk and I have to fix an iphone 4. Fuck tiny screws, just gonna use tape

[Two weeks later]

I had to fix this phone again today because the lady broke the lcd. I opened it up and said what fucking idiot worked on this? oh, right.



off to do some service work, and in the mean time my computer is moving 14gb of screenshots of wifi signal bars and recordings of sneezes, burps and ghosts from crazy lady's phone to a flash drive. she's going to give it to the cops as evidence of her husband and his ex-wife and some ghosts plotting against her.



Scruffy just came by my office to talk about car computers.

"See, there's a chip, it's for a computer, but it's the car's computer. It's known as a.. a car...computer..chip. You leave it in for 3 days. Or you can leave it in... You should make those."




I sold a refurbished laptop to a large, disgusting, obnoxious woman around Christmas and gave her a 6 month warranty for hardware failure. I remember her clearly because I had to conduct the transaction in the parking lot because she was too fat to get out of her van. She just had some old ass lady bring it back for warranty service. I always have mixed emotions when I see a really old person slowly making their way to my door. They might pay me handsomely for just listening to them talk about how they used to do stuff but don't do stuff now in between drifting in and out of senility. Or they might shit their pants. There's a risk/reward factor to consider before locking my door and pretending I'm not here. Anyway, now this laptop powers on but doesn't do anything else, which usually means replace the motherboard. In this case it means buy another laptop because this one is staying tied up in a trash bag to prevent roaches from invading this building.

When I called her to let her know her laptop had become a roach farm, she said "Well, it stays on the floor, helllloooo."

After arguing a while she finally accepted that this is not something that's covered under warranty, but was very disappointed to hear that it's 2014 and they still haven't figured out how to make computers roach-proof.



I got a lady's important files off her hard drive just before it started clicking and not working. She didn't like my price (even though it's the price I gave her in my estimate that she was cool with) and wanted to not pay me and take it elsewhere. I asked her if she wanted me to keep her backup for a few days in case she changes her mind and she said yes, but that was weeks ago so I deleted it.

Now she's back and she is maaaaaaad



Valve Boss talking about Donald Sterling: "He didn't say he didn't want niggers at the game. He said black people. How is that racist?"



The car dealership guys who share a building with me have been fixing up some old motorcycle, and now that it runs and looks presentable they're literally taking turns just sitting on it out in the parking lot, so they can look cool to passersby I guess. Scruffy has been out there for about an hour now, just sitting there and sipping on a Big Gulp.



I had an old lady in here for like an hour this morning who wanted me to transfer the emails from earthlink's proprietary email software located on the 1.8" ZIF drive of her dead vaio netbook to her new windows 8 laptop, on which she needed me to help her do things like "click the blue 'e' to go to the internet just like you've been doing on windows xp for the last 13 years." She kept hitting on me. Said shit like she could sense the native american spirit in me and it was driving her wild. I'm pretty sure she ate diapers for breakfast.



a pastor of a local church dropped his personal laptop off because it had a bunch of the usual crapware installed on it. he had a bunch of word docs on his desktop that I'm assuming were sermons. one of them was DANGERS OF HOMOSEXUALITY. After I removed some stuff I went into the download folder to get rid of the 17 duplicate installers that are always there on these systems and I'm greeted with a page full of thumbnails of naked asian ladyboys. for research, I'm sure.



I let a cute girl sit in my chair to do something on my computer, and now my whole office smells like crusty butt. I sprayed my chair down with deodorizer and have the air purifier going full blast but the smell won't leave. She's coming back tomorrow and I have to think of a nice way to tell her that she's banned from being behind the counter and she owes me a new chair.



I asked redneck rick moranis if he could change my oil some time this week if I paid him some money, and he replied with a long rant about how people think his time isn't valuable and how he's got important stuff to do like uh yelling at his alcoholic girlfriend over the phone (that's not me saying that's all he does; he actually said that's one of the things he has to do). But then he apologized and said he'd do it for free because I'm nice and am always here to listen.



A woman brought in a desktop that smelled like cat piss and described symptoms of a bad motherboard. I inflated my labor cost about 3x and gave her an estimate and told her how much of that was labor. She asked why so high, I said because a cat peed on your motherboard and it's probably disgusting inside and I'll have to work in the garage so my office doesn't smell like cat urine. She said she didn't smell anything, which was immediately followed by redneck rick moranis walking in from the garage and saying "ugh smells like cat piss in here."

she decided to try taking it elsewhere



A guy who does mobile computer repair brought me a desktop because the dvd drive isn't reading any discs and he couldn't figure it out. He thought malware was the cause but he spent several hours on it and couldn't get it working. "I've been fixing computers for 30 years but these new Chinese hackers are really making things difficult."

Swap dvd drive w/used one I pulled out of a dead computer, charge 60 bucks. Don't worry bro, I made sure China knows they're not welcome in this HP.



scruffy's wearing cutoff denim shorts that aren't quite as short as they were yesterday but they're still pretty short.



I swapped a hard drive in a desktop pc, and the customer said I couldn't have replaced the hard drive because she put a sticker on the outside of her case and it was still there. She finally paid me and left but I don't think she's completely convinced that a hard drive is an internal component and not the whole computer.



Possibly autistic guy who can't pronounce 'r' took apart his laptop for no apparent reason, ended up breaking some things including the ribbon that connects the power button so he couldn't verify if it still worked. I sold him parts and he wanted to install them himself. Now his motherboard is bad. Instead of just returning the parts, he says I have to weplace the mothabode fa fwee because I let him install the pawts on his own when I should have wefused to sell to him because he obviously doesn't know what he's doing. He said he spoke to his fwend who is a lawya and I have 24 houwas to fix it or I'm in big twouble.



Trying to decide if I should do something with this older lady who flirts with me every time she comes in. I wasn't all that interested at first, but after watching her leave today I thought, I'm getting old now, and with age comes civic responsibility. Older single moms in my community shouldn't go without if there's something I can do to make a difference. It's now my duty, to please that mom booty.


[after I briefly re-hired Buttgirl to help me with shop stuff during a busy season]
Buttgirl spent $35 on a Harry Potter wand. And she printed off a long list of spells. Now she's casting spells in the back. She said she couldn't do them with me staring at her.



Someone interviewed me today for a school assignment or something. The first question was something like "what made you decide on your career path". The answer I gave with a deadpan delivery was "I've been thuggin' all my life and decided that maybe it's time to go legit. I had to go with something that would let me use the skills and knowledge I picked up on the streets. Fixing computers is pretty much the same, except with khakis." My other answers were in similar fashion. She wrote all of this down with no reaction.



Valve Boss's 4-year-old daughter saw me with a shaved head and asked what happened to my hair. I said the hair fairy took it. She asked me to bend down so she could whisper to me that there's no such thing as a hair fairy and that she thinks I got robbed.



Car Boss yelling in his office: "when I find out who the fuck's been stealing all the scotch tape I'm gonna FROST THEIR ASS"



Scruffy talking about the guys re-paving a parking lot across the street:
I saw some fellow workers across the street, and they were sweatin' a lot, so I went over to talk to 'em. I knew what they were doing before we even got started. So I asked if they wanted a cold drink. And they said 'yeah.' So I went and got me a cold drink. I didn't get theirs 'cause none of 'em told me what they wanted. I reckon I oughta go back over and ask 'em. *sips Pepsi and stares off into the distance*



Scruffy was just telling me how he used to be the chief engineer at some sort of medical research facility. He talked it up like he was in charge of lots of important and technical stuff. But then he said that his job was to fix leaky faucets. And he went into the technical details of troubleshooting and repairing the typical sink as if it were neuroscience. Figuring out which o-ring needs to be replaced is one of the greatest mysteries of modern engineering.



A Spanish-speaking lady came in through the car dealer entrance and wandered over to my side of the building because no one was over there, so I went looking for car dudes. The only one I could find was Scruffy, who was back behind the shop eating something he picked off a vine growing on the fence. He was startled when I called for him and quickly pretended he was only looking at the vine and not eating it.

Scruffy went over to the office where the lady was waiting and after a few moments I noticed she was sitting in there by herself again. About ten minutes went by and she was still sitting there, so I went to the back and found Scruffy to ask him what's up with the lady. "She told me she had an appointment and I told her I don't know nothin' about it." I asked if he called his boss and let him know there's a lady waiting. No, Scruffy wasn't quite sure what to do so he just walked away. He explained that that's what he does when he doesn't know what to do. Just walks away.

I tried to get a little more information out of the lady and realized she was saying "payment" not "appointment." So I took her name and money and gave her a generic receipt. I told Scruffy she was saying "payment" and he said "Oh, I didn't know you're Spanish. Where are you from?"



Okay I'm tired of digging through these and will post more later.

btw I'm having to weed through a lot of posts and a majority of them are about food. Goddamn people used to bring me a lot of food. No wonder I got so fat there.

[Sandman]

Scruffy explaining to me why bigger engines are always faster than smaller engines:
"So, say ya got a big block. It's a V8. And ya got a small block. And ya got a 4-cylinder. Now, the small block, it's a V8 like the big block, but it does not have the POWAR of the big block. Because the big block has more inches. And let's say the 4-cylinder is faster than the small block. Maybe even faster than the big block. But if it don't got the POWAR how long is it going to be faster? *stares at me like he's expecting an answer* A week? A month? But that big block is still going to be fast for years. And that 4-cylinder, well..." *walks away*

Sometimes he feels the need to tell me stuff like this unprovoked, like he wants to remind me that I don't have a monopoly on stuff-knowing around here.



I was about to close up just so I could get some shit done and not have to work through the weekend, but when I went to lock the door, an suv pulled up. A short 400+lb dude squeezed out of the back seat and huffed and puffed his way up the walkway towards the door. Part of me wanted to lock the door but I didn't want the guy to go through all that trouble for nothing. He looked early 20s with unkempt red hair and neckbeard. I held the door open for him and caught a whiff of cheese and dirty laundry. As I followed him in I noticed he had a fucking bag of cheetos hanging out of his back pocket.

He said he just came into some money and wanted his dream computer. i7, dual video cards, custom water cooling for the cpu and gpus, overclocked everything, triple displays, etc. So we were going over stuff and he told me what all he wants the machine to be able to handle: guild wars 2, firefox, reddit, youtube. I told him I think it can manage all that. "What about HD video?" Woah now. Yes but she'll be pushed to her limits! He didn't understand sarcasm so I had to clarify that yes this will handle anything you throw at it.

While we were talking, this fuckin dude was eating cheetos, which I assumed were coming from the bag I saw in his pocket but was confused because it looked like an unopened bag and I didn't see him open it.

I went over the list with him and tallied up a ballpark price. He let me talk while he munched and stared at me like I was telling him he has cancer, so I stopped and asked if we're okay so far. He said he has "500 and 300 to spend." I asked, "So you have 800?" "I have 500 now but I'll have another 300 next week."

I told him I can get him something adequate for his needs for $800 out the door but the triple displays and such weren't gonna happen. I gave him a quick rundown and told him he can give me the $500 now as a deposit and I'd have it ready to go in a couple days. After an uncomfortably long silence, and more cheetos, he said he'd try some other places and get back to me maybe. I recommended the flea market. I hope he didn't think I suggested it because he doesn't have enough money, because it was really because he'd have to do a lot of walking to get there and he needs the exercise.

As he was leaving I noticed the bag of cheetos was indeed unopened. This motherfucker was eating loose cheetos out of a different pocket.



I am still at work because I was listening to redneck rick moranis argue with his crazy girlfriend and listening to him tell me stories about the two of them. best entertainment I've had all week.

Ok, this was like some Jerry Springer shit.

tl;dr: basically a trailer trash soap opera.

I've been dismissing RRM's tales of his girlfriend because they sound like exaggerations and I was sure there was something he was doing to her to cause all the conflict, plus I normally don't care about other peoples' relationship drama, but today I got to see/hear a lot of it for myself. It was pretty interesting. I don't know if I can process it all right now but here are some things that I remember:

RRM's girlfriend is a major alcoholic and also takes something like 15 painkillers a day. He provides her with both of these things because "she gets like this (a little upset) without them." Also she allegedly threatens to flood/burn his place if he doesn't provide her with pills and alcohol.

They are pretty much always fighting, but they recently got into a huge fight when they went to a swinger party. They have been doing this for years but at the last one the girlfriend did not play nice with the other ladies and also she was upset that RRM was okay with other guys having sex with her.

Since that incident, he has refused to have sex with her and she has, from the sounds of it, been trying to murder him. Earlier this week he showed me several cuts on his legs and arms where she had thrown things at him and tried to stab him.

Also at some point he called her mom and told her about the painkiller abuse, which may be what got her angry enough to try to stab him. I don't remember.

Today he left for home a little after 4 and came back with new cuts on his forearm and hand. She tried to stab him with a kitchen knife because he came home without her beer and cigarettes, he told me casually like it was just another day. Why not call the cops? Because she threatened to call them on him and show her bruise on her wrist from where he knocked it against a wall to get her to drop the knife. He says he once had to spend 3 days in jail because she lied about something similar.

He showed me his texts from her where she was demanding sex, demanding beer and pills, threatening to tell the police that he hit her, threatening to kill him, saying she's going to walk down the street naked until someone picks her up, threatening to burn the house down, accused him of lying about being back at work and saying he's with another girl, and then more asking for sex, beer and pills. Also, peppered throughout this long barrage of texts were several pictures of her hairy vagina. One of them involved a beer bottle. It was literally like: callin the cops *vagina pic* gonna murder u *vagina pic* bring beer plz.

Instead of ignoring her or calling someone or doing something a rational person might do, he continued to argue with her about dumb shit and sent her pictures of the building to verify that he was at work. And he told her that he's not having sex with her unless she shaves.

She called and he put her on speakerphone. I said hello! She told me to fuck myself. Then she yelled at RRM that she hasn't had a beer since 2 o'clock so he better bring some home or she's going to find a way to come up to the shop. He told her that while she's on her way here he's going to go home and throw all her shit outside. I told him he's not helping. She told me to shut the fuck up, but then asked me if I wanted to fuck her because RRM isn't man enough. I said "ehhh..." RRM said "See, James don't wanna fuck that nasty hairy pussy neither." I was kind of afraid that I might get stabbed too but she didn't address it and said he must be cheating on her which is why he doesn't want to have sex. The arguing started to get dull so I went across the street for beer.

I came back to more fun texts that he shared with me. She told him she was going to fuck some friend of his and get him to back up some story she was going to go to the police with, followed by threatening to cut his dick off. RRM called her step-dad and asked him to give her a call to try to calm her down, which just made her more angry. Then another phone call on speakerphone where she screamed at him to come home again. He told her he wasn't coming home because he doesn't want to have to dodge knives. She told him he wouldn't have to if he would do as he's told.

We drank some beers and he sent her a picture of the beer because he's stupid. We discussed his options. He didn't want to get the law involved or do anything else I suggested other than not going home. She called again. More screaming. There was something in there about how she's going to go find a new man that's worth shaving for.

Some more texting went on. He said she calmed down. He called her and told her he'd come home and would pick up beer and cigarettes for her. I didn't hear her end clearly because he didn't have her on speaker, but she did not sound happy when he told her again to shave. I told him if he doesn't let me know tomorrow that he's alive, I'm calling the police.



Oh boy, I'm here with redneck rick moranis during another exciting argument.

"My old sensei used to call me Rocky" is the best thing I've heard so far.

He left at 5 today and came back around 6, yelling at his phone as he walked in. He was using speech-to-text to send fightin' words to his girlfriend's stepfather so of course it wouldn't come out right if he didn't yell. He told me her stepfather was threatening to come over with his son (the girlfriend's stepbrother) and beat up RRM. I don't know how that got started but that's when he started telling me about fights he'd been in and how he was a brown belt in an unspecified discipline. His old sensei called him Rocky because he doesn't give up when he's getting the crap kicked out of him, or something like that. I was actually working during some of this so I may have missed some things. But I did see him show off some of his moves

This time I did not get to see the text messages or hear the crazy lady screaming on the phone, but he gave me the gist and it was basically more of her demanding beer and other stuff and him telling her to get out. He said no new acts of violence have happened but he was trying to figure out how to get her out of the house. Evidently the law can't be involved so I'm starting to think he's got a little grow operation or something. I suggested he stop providing her with things like beer and food. He liked that idea as if the thought had never occurred to him, but then he decided to employ a scorched earth strategy and cut the power and her cell phone as well. He told her he was going to do that, which she didn't like, and this somehow turned into an argument over who is the ugliest of the two of them. I was done working but I wanted to stick around for this so I ordered chinese.

There were more texts with her stepfather; he was telling RRM that he'd go to jail if he turned her phone off, and RRM yelled back into his phone (he's using text to speech the whole time btw) that it's in his name so he can turn it off if he wants. Then, as he was telling me about how her stepfather is also a junky and alcoholic who relies on RRM for the occasional rides and beer money (he loves enabling I guess), things went full trailer park as the girlfriend's stepfather started forwarding dirty pictures of RRM's girlfriend to RRM that she had sent to her stepfather. The girlfriend then texted him saying that she sent pictures to her friends and they all said there's nothing wrong with how she looks. He told her that her stepfather had forwarded him pictures that she sent, to which she replied "At least I know he liked them." The stepfather then sent a text saying that he would be over at RRM's house with his girlfriend whenever he's at work. RRM's response to this was to again tell him that he's not welcome and he has "no trespassing" signs posted and so on and so forth. But, uh?

I asked about her relationship with her stepfather. RRM said that her real father left when she was 2 and then this guy became her stepfather when she was 6. Just that moment it seemed he finally started to realize the fuckedupness of the situation with the pictures and that text message. So he sat there pondering if anything had gone on between the two of them while she sent a bunch of texts that went from her acting really nice and asking for beer. Then he told her he'd bring a 4-pack home if he could just go to bed and not have to put up with anything else, but it sounded like she had found someone else to supply her with alcohol. I left as he was yelling at his phone about the no trespassing signs again. I'm pretty sure he's sleeping there tonight.



RRM: Did Scruffy leave?
Car Boss: He went to Wal-Mart to relax.
RRM: That ain't no vacation unless he's playing with the pool noodles.
Car Boss: No, but they have chairs up there, so, you know.

[Sandman]

I'm here live with Redneck Rick Moranis, learning more about trailer trash culture than I care to.

When RRM walked in today he was yelling at his phone again (speech to text) "Your stuff is gone. You told me to burn it so I burned it." So right off the bat I knew I was in for a treat. Several customers later, he came over to my office and told me of weekend happenings. He showed me new battle wounds - a few nasty bite marks, some bruising, a cut, lots of scratches. He said his girlfriend got mad about something that I now forget, probably had something to do with pills or beer, and during her tantrum she pulled their 20lb cat down off the top of the refrigerator by its tail and slammed him on the kitchen floor, which it bounced off of and then tried limping away while crazy lady tried to kick it. RRM grabbed her, she bit him in the arm until he let go, and then she started beating him with various objects until he "took her to the floor." He said he then left, and while he was out, girlfriend's creepy stepfather got a ride from a woman who has sex with him and drives him around in exchange for coke, and picked up crazy girlfriend.

She and RRM were going back and forth in texts and she told him to burn all her stuff she left behind because she doesn't need it anymore but she doesn't want anyone else getting it. He didn't actually burn it because he hopes she'll come back for some reason. But he wants her to think he did. He's a complicated man. Also the cat is now pissing blood and I don't know if he's taken it to a vet or what.

A bit later, he played for me a voicemail her stepfather left him, in which the stepfather said in slurred speech that he took RRM's prescription and he's going to tell the cops that he sold it to him for $150. RRM was going to offer to trade a bottle of Jack Daniel's for his own pills. I told him to instead text him to please return the pain meds that he stole. RRM argued that he's not going to return them. I told him to call the law and show them the voicemail and the incriminating text messages that the guy was sure to reply with because even if he says he bought them, he's still in possession of someone else's prescription pain meds and each one of those pills is a felony charge. RRM liked this idea but I don't think he did anything other than send more stupid text messages.

Around when I'd normally be closing up, RRM was sitting in my waiting area and looking sad. He said the stepfather had been sending him pictures of his girlfriend walking around topless and doing lines of coke and kissing the stepfather's fuckbuddy. This was upsetting him because, even though he's glad she's gone and he knows it's for the best, he doesn't like seeing her "having a good time" with someone else, and he certainly didn't like that she was definitely going to have sex with someone else. I was finishing up a warm can of rockstar I had been nursing half the day and I suddenly felt that I must use this can in a moment of profundity. I said something like, "This rockstar and I have been together for a while now - at least 4 hours. It's not very good now. It was probably okay several hours ago but maybe I'm just only remembering the good and forgetting the bad. But right now it's room-temperature and nasty and I don't know why I'm still drinking it." RRM nodded like he understood. I finished it and continued, "Now it's not doing anything for me." I crushed it and threw it on the floor between us. "Now, if you pick up that can, do you think it's going to piss me off?" After a brief pause he laughed and said that was a great way of putting it and now he feels silly for getting upset over her. I felt like I did some good in the world, which balances out the fact that I did not recycle that aluminum can.

My good feeling was shortlived because RRM started scheming about how he'd continue a sexual relationship with this crazy cat abusing woman. He said that her stepfather is only "helping her" so he can fuck her, and when he has burned through his monthly allotment of money, she'll be begging RRM to take her back. Then he was back to being upset that she's probably having sex with her stepfather, not because it's her stepfather who raised her as a child and that's gross and disturbing, but because RRM isn't involved. And by that I mean RRM would be cool with a threesome but does not like the thought of her having sex without him being there.

Remember last time when I told of how she was sending nudie pics of herself to her stepdad and how RRM was wondering if something had been going on between the two of them? Well, tonight he admitted that he knows the two of them have had sex because he was there. The story goes, creepy stepdad was over at RRM's place and they were "having a good time" whatever that entails, and girlfriend was walking around naked in front of stepdad and RRM was a little turned on by this. He took girlfriend to the bathroom for a quickie, they left the bathroom door open, stepdad came over and asked if he could join in, and RRM said "Fuck it, whip it out dude!" Because, he explained, "the bitch got three holes so why not?" RRM said he didn't tell me this last time because I looked like I wasn't ready to hear that. Why he thought I was ready this time, I don't know. I guess my can metaphor showed him that I'm on another level or something.

I forgot to mention that at some point during the day RRM told me about a girl his friend set him up with over the weekend. He said she's the niece of someone he knows, is 20 years old, makes $60k/yr, drives a new lexus, is amazingly hot and sounds very made-up. He said his girlfriend saw the two of them together at Winn-Dixie this weekend and that's what prompted her stepfather to send the pictures of them partying to make him jealous. RRM plans to take pictures of him and the hot young girl with lots of money at her penthouse in Daytona and send them to his girlfriend to make her jealous.

Anyways, RRM started telling me about the secret society of trailer park swingers and how there's all sorts of crazy orgies always happening and stuff. He said the problem with his new prospect is that she's looking for a guy who's faithful and not a guy who wants her to get double-penetrated in a double wide trailer, so he can't take her to these swinger parties and just happen to show up at one that his girlfriend and her stepfather are at. Because he really wants crazy girlfriend to see him pull up to the party with this girl in her lexus and then have sex with her. That would make her soooo mad. As he was getting ready to leave for the night, RRM said he didn't like going home to an empty broken down RV or whatever it is he lives in, and said he was thinking about taking a couple bottles of Jack Daniel's over to her stepfather's place so she would get drunk and go nuts and her stepfather would bring her back home when he gets tired of her breaking all his shit.



Scruffy needed something to attach a thing to another thing but he didn't know what to call any of the things, so he made a circle with his hands (like he's gripping an invisible can) and said "now pretend my fingers is flat."

After some questioning I went with a 2.25" band clamp, though when I asked if 2.25" was the inner or outer diameter, he looked up like the answer might be written on the ceiling and then said he don't know nothin' about that.



I ordered a pizza. Scruffy says: "Looks like it's fixin' ta rain somethin' fierce. You're gonna have soggy pizza 'cause they don't use the pizza umbrellas no more. Probably got too expensive." I can't tell if he's fucking with me or not.



The latest drama from trailerville according to Redneck Rick Moranis:

He got home late last night and crazy girlfriend was outside waiting for him. Her stepdad got tired of her and dropped her off. They made up and she started laying down rules about how they're going to be a normal couple and they're going to go to church and she wants her kid from a previous marriage to come visit for the weekend. RRM said that the first thing they need to do in working towards a good relationship is to check her into rehab. She refused and said that she met an awesome guy who likes her just the way she is so if RRM doesn't like her then she'll go to this totally not made up dude. That started a fight and girlfriend threw boiling water at RRM and hit him over the head with a cast iron lid. I didn't see the burn marks but he did show me a blood-encrusted cut hiding under his hair. He grabbed her arm to get her to drop the lid and then shoved her against a wall. Somehow they ended up making up again and having sex.

On his way to work, crazy girlfriend called RRM very upset because she called her mom and told her that RRM was beating her. The mom then called the girlfriend's ex-husband to tell him of the hostilities so he won't let their kid come over to visit. She wanted RRM to call the ex-husband and somehow correct the situation so he'd let her kid come over to visit. RRM wasn't very happy about her telling her mom that he beats her, which was the yelling I heard this morning. After he got back from lunch he told me about all of this and asked for advice with setting up hidden cameras so next time she goes nuts and starts beating/stabbing/burning him, he'll have it on camera and can go to the cops without having to worry about her saying that he was the attacker and she was just defending herself. I told him the best advice I can give him is to SEVER because this is really stupid. He agreed but he likes the crazy sex they have so he'd rather just go with the camera option.

Later in the day, he asked about setting up a cam site for her because that's what she wants to do now. I didn't have much information to offer. He said he'd try to research that but in the meantime he's going to make a bunch of videos to sell for $10-$20 ea depending on quality. He asked if I could sell him a bunch of DVD-Rs at $1 ea. I gave him 50 for $40 because I am a nice guy like that.



A Ukrainian dude came by to buy a Prius. He wandered over to my shop and showed me a picture of an iphone 4 with the battery terminal ripped from the board. He asked how much I'd charge to fix it. I told him I wouldn't waste my time on it because the terminal took a couple pads with it. Then he showed me a picture of the terminal reattached with tiny jumper wires connected to the battery leads. "This is how I fix." He laughed a condescending Ukrainian laugh and walked away. Now I feel dumb and sad. Sorry, America, I've let you down.



today one of my regulars came in to give me some spun honey (she brings me honey sometimes, that's her thing) and to show me her new boob job. She didn't actually show me her boobs but she held them and said "notice anything different?" Her friend/roommate recently died and she decided that was the best way to cheer herself up. And she told me to call her next time I'm out her way if I want to come over and chat, but I need to give her some notice so she can freshen up. She's 70 btw.



Earlier today, a dude with no shirt came in, I stood up to greet him, and he asked if it's okay to come in without a shirt. Valve Boss saw this and thought it was the funniest thing. He's been laughing about it all day, went over to the car dealer guys' office to tell them about this funny thing, he called his wife to tell her, and he had to come tell me again how funny it was before he left for the day. I told him I don't get it. "Well, I guess it's one of those things where you had to be there."



Scruffy:
I was a high tech maintenance engineer. I had to have bulbs on hand, and they had to be the right kind at a certain price. And I had to have toilet repair kits and all kinds of repair kits. 'Cause they wasn't about no leaving the premises if you needed parts. The administrature would ask where I been and if I thought it was a good idea to spend a day driving around looking for the right kind of light bulbs. That's why I had a stroke.



Scruffy and Redneck Rick Moranis both brought me McDonald's breakfast. Now I have two breakfasts. Clearly they have named me their king. Now it's just a question of whether I will be a just king or a mad tyrant.



Scruffy: My hair's gettin' long again. I reckon I'll cut it this evening.
Car Boss: Are you going to cut it yourself?
Scruffy: Yessir. I try to save a dollar where I can.
Car Boss: Scruffy, do you remember the last time you cut your own hair?
Scruffy: I have a vague recollection.
Car Boss: I remember it clearly and I say you should take your hair to a professional.
Scruffy: It couldn't have been too bad, 'cause it still grew back.
Car Boss: Okay, well, I'll get a hat for you.
Scruffy: I have a sweatband I like to wear.
Car Boss: *sigh* I know you do



Scruffy looks almost like a normal person now that he doesn't have a gray MacGyver mullet, but he's really mad that he let his boss talk him into getting a haircut because "in this country we have freedom of hair and freedom of pants." I don't know what pants have to do with anything unless he was told to stop wearing extra-short jorts.



buttgirl called to tell me how she told the girl at the costume store that she doesn't need a wand to go with her hermione costume because she has a REAL harry potter wand, and she recited some spells for the girl, and then she got real embarrassed because she realized she's a huge dork and ran away.



Me: Morning, Scruffy!
Scruffy: I already said good morning to you. You wasn't in your office.
Me: Oh, okay!
Scruffy: I was talkin' to a wall I suppose. Sometimes that's all there is to talk to.
Me: Huh.
Scruffy: When all you got to talk to is walls, sometimes they talk back.
Me: ...okay, see ya later!

[Sandman]

I bought a sign, some business cards and ran an ad for Redneck Rick Moranis and his small engine repair venture. He has gotten a few customers, but I just found out he's only charging people his parts cost. He has made a net of $0 on 4 repairs. I guess he's not going to be able to pay me back any time soon.

RRM's reason for working on a pressure washer for free: it belongs to the coworker of a friend of the lady they work with at a financing company. And the reason for doing the other stuff for free? He's hoping the customers will give him some word-of-mouth advertising. I asked, but why would you want people telling other people that you work for dirt cheap? You're just going to get a bunch of people who expect the same. He said cheap customers are better than no customers.

No, no they're not. Not when you're literally working for free uuuuggghhhh why are you so dumb



just met another "professional laptop repair technician" in the area. brought me a disassembled laptop that he took apart to replace the fan but can't find the model on instructables so he doesn't want to go any further and mess something up. he showed me a tube of thermal compound and said "they sent me some kind of glue with the fan but it doesn't hold very well."



redneck rick moranis said last night his girlfriend drove his golf cart into a pond, but he wasn't even mad because that gave him something to test his recently-tweaked muddin' cart with. The muddin' cart was able to pull the submerged golf cart out of the pond with ease. He talked about this very excitedly.

the reason she drove the golf cart into the pond is she said she wanted to have a 3some with rrm and her ex-husband and rrm said ok and she got really mad that he was ok with that.



the old lady with the new boob job who brings me honey sometimes just asked if I wanted to come keep her company tonight. she is 70. I told her I'm seeing someone but now I'm worried she won't bring me any more honey.



RRM is in the back yelling at his gf over the phone. only thing I could clearly make out besides a barrage of "fucks" is "you're so drunk you can't keep a cat in the house! you probably can't keep a dog in, neither!" 'Round these parts they measure intoxication levels by making you play pet goalie and seeing how many dogs and cats can get by you.



A 90-year-old guy comes in pretty frequently with no clear objective. He's like Hans Moleman without glasses. Every time, he'll talk about his new laptop and how he took lessons at the senior center in ohio but his memory isn't very good at 90, then he'll talk about how computers used to be and how he used to work in electronics, then he'll give me 20 bux for taking up my time and be on his way. Today he came in and asked for help setting up his new laptop (this is the same laptop he's been saying is new for the past year). It's already setup. I can't find anything wrong, he can't tell me any specific thing he's having problems with, so hooray it's just more story time.

I wasn't listening much until he told me there's no point in trying to live any longer because he has nothing else to do and is just waiting to die. Then he said his sex life didn't end until six weeks ago.

Hans Moleman: I guess I shouldn't tell you how it started.
Me: How what started?
Hans Moleman: When I was 12 I lived on a farm.
Me: Ok...
Hans Moleman: And I started having sex.
Me: Ok.
Hans Moleman: With the animals.
Me: Oh.
Hans Moleman: It wasn't hurtin' nobody, but most people don't like to hear that.



I just sold a laptop to a dude this morning and he brought it back to me with the keyboard not working. I could see some kind of shiny residue between the keys like it had gotten wet, so I took the keyboard off and the bottom side was still dripping with some kind of sticky brown liquid. I told him I'd replace the keyboard and told him the price. He said he's not paying for it because it has a warranty, I told him the policy states liquid damage isn't covered.

"That's not liquid. That's tea."



welp this old lady called me and asked how long it would take me to fix her computer. I asked what was wrong with it and 4 minutes of bullshit later she had forgotten who and why she was calling.



customer: my computer is doing all kinds of weird stuff like when I click here..
me: Looks like your control key is sticking.
customer: but look, when I go to my mail...
me: yep, ctrl key is stuck.
customer: and look - why is it doing this?!
me: because your ctrl key is stuck.
customer: and why when I double click on
me: *taps ctrl key to un-stick it*
customer: oh it's not doing it now
me: Yeah, your ctrl key isn't stuck now.
customer: hold on, now when I..wait, it's not doing it now
me: *walks away*
customer: but you saw what it was doing, right?



RRM drama is unfolding. Here is what I have so far:

RRM's girlfriend woke up in the middle of the night and drank 3 of her 4 daily allotted tallboys. She woke him and wanted him to go get more beer but he told her he didn't have any money. She didn't believe him and after she drank her 4th beer she started breaking dishes. He went back to sleep. This angered her more so she beat his ass with a frying pan. He showed me some marks on him support his story.

RRM told her he was going to get more beer but he went to work. This explains why he was here before me this morning. Allegedly she has been blowing up his phone all day about beer. He finally gave in around 2 when she said she needed something for her headache. When he got home his girlfriend punched him in the mouth as soon as he opened the door, so he came back to work. He had a freshly cut bottom lip so he was hit by something alright.

RRM went straight to the back of the shop when he came in and didn't say anything. I wasn't going to ask about the lip because I was 99% sure the words "girlfriend" and "beer" were involved.

At about 4 I saw his ex girlfriend walk around to the back of the building. I don't know if I've mentioned her but Scruffy pointed her out to me one day and told me that for the past couple years she's been making occasional unannounced visits, usually resulting in RRM taking an hour break to go back to her place. Scruffy does not approve because 1) she's married to a Mexican and they're hard working people who don't deserve that, and 2) she fugly. RRM did indeed leave with her today.

When he came back he told me about what went on this morning and getting punched in the mouth this afternoon. There's more to be told but he was interrupted by his girlfriend showing up with who I'm pretty sure is her brother.

They were yelling back behind the building for quite a while. Valve Boss stayed later than he usually does because he could hear them from his office and he thought it was hilarious. "I guess they got some kind of hillbilly love triangle going on," he said. I told him the guy is her brother. "Oh man, they really are hillbillies."



Car Boss been gone all week. The door has been locked almost the entire time because RRM and Scruffy have been taking 3 hour lunches and hide in the back every time someone comes on to the lot. Except for now. I just went back there to tell RRM that a very hot young lady was out there looking at cars and he literally jumped up and took off running. it was actually a large old woman on a scooter.

[Sandman]

RRM's face looks like it went through a windshield. He said his gf hit him in the face with a big tree branch but he's mostly upset that she broke the tv remote.



Valve Boss wants to pay me to go to disney tomorrow to assess their valves situation because he has a doc appt and the last remaining service guy quit.

this will be me:
*looks at valves*
*puts ear to valve and knocks on it*
*inspects tags closely with magnifying glass*
*checks wrist watch and the position of the sun*
*licks finger and holds it up to check wind direction*
*jots down things in a notepad, presses buttons on calculator, looks at each of them and nods*
yep, it checks out. these are valves, alright. i'll have my people send your people a full report in 2-3 days.



I finally got a chance to hear RRM's story about why his gf hit him in the face with a tree branch. She was angry that he went to a thrift store and bought an alarm clock by himself. He never takes her shopping. So he's saving up his money to buy his lady a real nice dildo so maybe she'll be nicer when he gets home and won't try to cave his skull in. But it's so gosh darned hard to save money when he has to spend it all on beer, cigarettes and pills for her.



a guy walked into the empty car sales office. RRM came in after him talking to his phone presumably doing speech to text. He wasn't saying anything to the guy and kept talking at his phone so I thought maybe it was a friend of his.

RRM to his phone:
"When did you start drinking this morning?"
"I'm putting all your stuff in the fire pit tonight so don't bother coming back."
"Stay there. Maybe you'll get laid by your stepdad again and he can tell me all about how he had his dick in your ass."
but then he says to the guy "Okay, sorry about that. How can I help you?"
customer: "Uhh..I want to look at that blue Explorer ..."

such a professional

presently he's in the back yelling at someone on the phone. something about calling DCF because a pizza was thrown at a child.



RRM finally kicked his gf out a couple days ago I guess and she has already worn out her welcome with a few people. Now her mom is being very hostile towards RRM because the gf has to stay with her or be homeless. She said she was going to tell his landlord and everyone at the car lot that he's a woman beater and a child molester so he'll get fired and kicked out of his home. Sadly she never stopped by. Also there was the issue where his boss isn't paying him for a bunch of work done on a few vehicles that sold recently because he needs the money to buy more vehicles. He doesn't understand why RRM would have a problem with this since he has a side job.

Later he heard from the hopefully ex girlfriend's sister that GF didn't even make it inside her mom's house before she tried to fight her and a neighbor had to intervene. The girlfriend then hung out at a gas station and went off with some dude after posting on facebook that she'd "really appreciate it if a nice guy gave her a ride and a place to stay for the night with one of them winky faces. That poor loser don't know that little winky face means he's about to spend a night in whore hell."

Before he left for the day RRM said he wasn't looking forward to going home because he gets very depressed when he's alone. I told him to get a big jar and write her name on it, and put the money in it that he'd normally spend on her beer and cigarettes and painkillers and replacing broken dishes and windows. He said that's a great idea but the jar doesn't have them big titties. don't worry bro, by the end of the year that jar will be able to buy you a new pair!



the owner of the car lot is telling scruffy that he's letting RRM go and hiring "a real mechanic" because RRM argued with him over pay.

RRM didn't get paid for a timing belt change and some other work because the owner said he needed the money to buy more vehicles at the auction, and that RRM doesn't need to be paid because he has income from a side job. Evidently after I told him that no that is not okay and that he needs to stop letting the owner walk all over him, or go find another job, he went to the owner and demanded he pay him. I'm guessing he didn't get anywhere with that. also guessing that the owner doesn't know that real mechanics make like $25/hr when he can't afford one that works for practically nothing.



Scruffy: "I know this is none of your business, but I'll tell you anyway. There's a man. He come by this morning. He has ten thousand cash on him, walkin' around. He wants to buy that '99 F250 that we painted yesterday. I buffed it and put a good shine on it and I know that's why he wants it. He has a powarful desire for the vehicle. But Car Boss's not here. RRM's not here. What am I supposed to do except walk away?"
Me: "Did you tell the guy to come back later, or get his number or anything?"
Scruffy: "No. I couldn't do nothing, so I walked away."
Me: "Well that's certainly the best way to handle that!"
Scruffy: "Car Boss's gonna be real upset with RRM not bein' here. A man with money in his pawket was ready to buy. You can't let money just walk off the lot like that."



Scruffy's usually the first car lot person here in the mornings, and after he turns the lights on and makes it look like someone's here, he locks the door and goes to the diner across the street. I don't know why he doesn't do that first. This morning a customer was walking up to the door just as Scruffy was leaving and started asking about an SUV on the lot. Scruffy told him to follow him across the street, and he kept walking. The guy just paused for a moment and then followed him. They just got back from having breakfast together and they're buds now.



Car Boss has been on the phone for about 3 hours trying to pay off a lien and has been getting understandably frustrated. it sounds like he got disconnected again because he want "haaaaAAAAAAHHHHHHH" and then farted a loud, terrible old man fart. now I'm giggling like an idiot thinking of an anime man charging a fart blast.



I just realized RRM is sitting & crying in my lobby area. not sure if I should ask why



RRM is supposed to be off Saturday but his boss told him today that he has to come in because boss wants to go roping. RRM told him he has already made plans and his boss to him if he doesn't come in he'll be looking for another job. RRM asked if he could leave an hour early at least. No.

RRM called crazy girlfriend and told her they can't do whatever it is they were going to do on Saturday and she got angry and has been blowing up his phone all day, so he's not happy about that.

RRM then tried to call boss's bluff and asked his boss how he expected to stay in business with him gone. Boss told him that he's already been talking to his sister-in-law about working for him. She used to sell cars but she's an alcoholic and she caused a dealership to lose their license when she got a dui in one of their cars with the dealer tag on it. She is still an alcoholic but boss says she can still sell cars better than RRM.

so now he's sad.



I wish I were recording RRM's and scruffy's argument over what exactly happened with a cop chasing a motorcycle. the argument was mostly over how the cop and motorcycle sounded as they passed by. "That bitch flew by like 'waaAAAAHHHNNNN!!'" "Naw it was like, 'bwaAAAAH brRRRRRR'" "No it was a damn crotch rocket and it sounded like 'weeeEEEEEEE'" "I was standin' right there as it flew the fuck by like 'bwaAAAAHHNNN buhWAAAAHHHHNNN'" "You need to clean the shit out your ears then"



"Everyone wants to sit around and play tiddlywinks? WELL I AIN'T PLAYIN NO GOT DAMNED TIDDLYWINKS!" - RRM yelling in the back



I was just doing networking stuff in what I thought was an empty building out in redneck industrial land. someone left a radio playing a country station and I started singing a generic country song that I was making up as I went along. with lyrics like "readin's fer faggots. the only dick I need is jesus's" then I heard a woman laughing in one of the offices and I got embarrassed and didn't finish my song.



Scruffy's been doing some work on his old dodge truck. It sounds pretty good with new headers and duals, but he's not done. "I ain't trying to race it. It's not a damned mustang. But I believe, in order to really get out here and show my ass, what I need is nitrous." Yessir that is the best way to show your ass, alright.



On Wednesday, RRM was working on a car for a guy who buys cars and has the dealership sell them for him. Scruffy didn't like this because he wanted RRM to help him do stuff to his truck. He liked it a lot less when RRM borrowed one of Scruffy's sockets and lost it. Or broke it. All I know is it needed to be replaced. RRM's offer to replace the socket the next day wasn't good enough for Scruffy, so RRM left to buy a new socket right then, and when he came back they all went to lunch together. RRM then came back by himself all riled up about Scruffy being an asshole and left again. Putting his and later the dealership owner's stories together, Scruffy made a scene at the restaurant, getting very loud and threatening to whoop RRM's ass, because he was angry that RRM replaced his Husky socket with a Craftsman socket. RRM returned later with a new socket from Home Depot but car boss had already sent Scruffy home.

Scruffy didn't show up yesterday. When car boss called him, he said he quit because no one was helping him find a car to buy. Apparently he's been asking them to let him go to the auctions or to find him some sort of muscle car, but he never said why and he had turned down everything RRM had found for him. Turns out he wanted a project car to fix up and sell on the lot, not something for him to drive. Car boss promised to help get him a project car to flip and Scruffy un-quit.

Scruffy was standing in the parking lot when I got to work and intercepted me before I made it to the door. He wanted to know if I had found a laptop that he could use for ECU tuning. I didn't know I was supposed to be looking for one but I told him I have a few laptops for sale. "Someone finally understands." And he walked off without inquiring further about laptops. RRM pulled in a bit later, and after a minute or so I heard increasingly angry yelling coming from the both of them. I walked down the hall to check the fax machine (someone sent a handwritten quote request I couldn't read so I tossed it) and saw the two of them yelling in each other's faces. That went on for a while and then car boss and car buyer guy showed up and they had some closed door discussions. RRM stayed behind at lunchtime, so I ordered some Chinese for us and he gave me the story.

Scruffy had been borrowing RRM's trailer for a few months. When RRM initially loaned him the trailer, he told him that the tag would expire soon, and Scruffy said he'd pay to renew it. Instead, Scruffy lost the tag somehow. Due to the recent drama, RRM had asked for Scruffy to bring his trailer back, not knowing that the tag was missing. Scruffy got a $160 ticket on the way to work for not having a tag. The argument this morning was over that and Scruffy saying that RRM had to pay the ticket because it's his fault. When RRM refused, Scruffy said he'd kick his ass, which, RRM explained he wasn't worried about during a long tangent in which he showed off some moves like Diemon Dave. But that further escalated into Scruffy threatening to shoot RRM if he doesn't come up with the money. When RRM explained this to the other car guys during their meeting and that he didn't feel comfortable being there, he was told he was overreacting because people tell each other they're going to kill each other all the time, NBD. And he was told that he'd have to look for another job if he left today.

Throughout lunch and the rest of the day, RRM kept asking me what I'd do if I were in his position and do I think this is right or that's right, but as usual he ignored most of what I said and he came up with a scheme. He didn't tell me anything other than it's going to drive car boss nuts until he fires Scruffy. Judging by the all tools RRM loaded into the car before he left, I'm guessing things are about to turn up to Wile E Coyote levels of elaborate and explosive.



listening to valve boss & car boss rant about how their respective businesses are in the toilet because of obama. it sounds like even car boss is starting to question valve boss's sanity, after he told him how he hoarded all the company money in a safe because he was worried about obama coming for it (his wife actually ended up stealing it out of the safe and sending it to her family in Ukraine, which is just one of the self-inflicted reasons why his biz is in the toilet, but he didn't tell that part).



"See, I got a bike, too. But I have other things to do. If we're goin' somewhere, great. I'll get the bike out. But, I gotta get a gallon of milk, or a bag of nuts and bolts, or somethin' from the store. That's why I got a bike. These guys - they're just wearin' leather, checkin' each other out and revvin' their motors. I don't understand the appeal." - Scruffy actually making a really good point about Bike Week.



Got this weird lady that's been coming in a lot lately. I'll call her Lady Jellybean because she wanted to pay me with a bag of jellybeans in lieu of money ("but they're gourmet jellybeans!"). She has no money, may be homeless, but she claims she used to be an opera singer or something and talks herself up like she was royalty. She has come in a few times just to show me pictures of her wearing fancy clothes at formal events as if that's supposed to justify her asking me to replace the hard drive on her shitty netbook knowing damn well she can't pay for it. I let her clean our bathrooms as partial payment, but she instead somehow broke one of the sink basins in a million pieces and peaced out. So now I have to pay for that. Thanks, Lady Jellybean.



trying to talk to an old lady customer while RRM is in the back loudly yelling at the car he's working on. "SON OF A FUCKIN WHORE BITCH KISS MY ASS *something metal falls on the floor* SHIT!! *ping ping* FUCKING REALLY? FUCKIN RETARDED ASS JAPANESE FUCKIN.." luckily she seemed amused by it. but evidently I need to invest in some sound-proofing.

[Sandman]

I've just been listening to RRM and Scruffy bitching about work for the past half hour. RRM was talking about not getting paid for a sale, and then:

Scruffy: "It's like: if you're at a steakhouse, what's your steak gonna look like? Is it gonna look like a sirloin steak? A t-bone? A veal cutlet?"
RRM: "I don't know what you mean."
Scruffy: "No, I'm asking."
RRM: "You're asking what steak looks like?"
Scruffy: "God damn it, what I'm saying is, what they don't realize, what you don't realize, what no one gets, is that, if you're losing deals or selling short or whatever, a steak is gonna look like a hamburger because you aren't making enough to eat at a steakhouse."
RRM: "....right."
Scruffy: "Even if I'm eating rotten cooter, I want to know I'm paid for the work I've done."

[Sandman]

Scruffy: every time I leave a screwdriver sittin round here it gets thrown away
RRM: no one would throw tools away. I'm sure they're around here somewhere.
Scruffy: No, I know they get thrown away because I put them in the trash can myself.
RRM: Why would you throw tools in the trash?
Scruffy: 'Cause I get tarred of shit always bein in the way, sittin where they aint sposed to be, not put up like they should be.
RRM: Why don't you just go put them back in the tool box then instead of throwing your own damn tools in the trash? That don't make no goddamned sense.
Scruffy: cause I'm tired of this shit! every goddamned day!
RRM: Ok, just seems weird to throw your own tools away, all I'm sayin
Scruffy: And no one's gonna help me buy more screwdrivers neither. piss on it.



RRM came in talking on his phone and I just heard "you wanna let two guys fuck you in the ass for a rail of coke.." before he walked into the back. And I'm wondering if that was like, two separate incidents, or both at the same time or what.



Scruffy: What's your thoughts on Jap food today?
Me: Today's sushi is disrespectful and lazy.
Scruffy: I don't want no damn sushi. Naw, I ain't havin that now. I mean the colonel chow mein and what have you.
Me: Oh, you want Chinese today?
Scruffy: That's what I'm askin you!
Me: Sure.
Scruffy: Ok. When the time's right, and you're here, and I'm here, you order and you come tell me what to pay.
Me: What do you want?
Scruffy: That colonel chow mein.
Me: Do you mean general tso's chicken or chicken chow mein.
Scruffy: *walks away*



lady friend is coming here after work and rudely demanded food so I told her I'd get her one of those hot dog pizzas if she doesn't ask nicely. she was confused and asked if that was some sort of sex thing. so I just ordered a hot dog pizza so she can witness one of the horrors that exists outside of her sheltered life.



lady friend was legit angry at me for getting a hot dog pizza and also for laughing at her reaction a bunch when she opened the box.

"What the fuck is that? Why did you get that? Why do you think I'd want that? Why do you think anyone would want that?"

well she started crying so now I'm working on a paper for one of her classes



RRM is in jail.

Here is what I know:

This morning he was ranting that he's tired of coming home to a place that isn't clean and food that isn't cooked so he told his gf that he's not buying her any more beer or cigarettes and she didn't like that one bit.

A little later he told me that his gf texted him that he needs to come home right now "because her mom is coming to get her" whatever that means?

Then I heard him yelling on the phone that he was going to go home and tell that bitch (presuming his gf's mom) to get the fuck out his house.

Before he left he ranted some more but I was fixing a phone and wasn't listening. He peeled out of the parking lot and a few hours later Scruffy told me he was in jail. Orange county's website says he was booked for domestic violence.

He looks content in his mugshot.



RRM went through something similar years ago where the same girl told cops he was stalking her, and RRM's lawyer told him he should have just hit her because that's a misdemeanor whereas stalking is a felony. So I thought he finally flipped out and took his piece of shit lawyer's advice. But Scruffy says otherwise:

"Now you know RRM's woman is crazy, and RRM ain't got no sense, neither. He told ol' crazy head that he wasn't gonna buy her no more beer. That's the only thing keepin her from attackin him and goin fuckin nuts. So what'd she do? She called her mother and said, 'RRM is hitting me. Please come get me.' And her mama, she's but four or five cards short of a deck, herself, and she don't like RRM. She hates him. She gone over there and called the sheriffs, told em RRM was beatin on her daughter. Now, RRM should have remained calm. He should have stayed here at work. I could say I knew his whereabouts and you could say you knew his whereabouts. I ain't known him to be no woman beater, but you know how he gets hot and his mouth starts goin. He tore ass down the road and sheriffs were there when he got home. He started in with his mouth and showin his ass and they took him to the jail. And what can you do? There's only so many words you can say. His head's just too damn thick."



RRM is mad because his gf (the one he's not supposed to have any contact with) was talking about wanting to meet up for sex, but then it turned into her inviting him to come out to the woods with her and 3 other guys to gangbang her. "'Bout two or three times a year she gets the gangbang bug and just wants lots of guys to fuck her. As long as they don't touch me, we cool." But she was hesitant to tell him what other guys were going to be involved, and one of them is her blood-related cousin. They've been hanging out a lot lately and now RRM realizes they've probably been having sex. RRM ain't down with the cousin-fuckin' so he didn't go to the backwoods gangbang, but she said she was still going to do it without him and that's why he's mad.

"I know I should cut her loose but it's gonna be hard if I can't find someone with big titties like hers."

now he's in the back yelling at a car while lil jon blares on his stereo.



RRM and Scruffy are staying late to do an engine swap on RRM's car, and I'm here for moral support. RRM is more animated than usual. He's going back and forth, from screaming rages and throwing tools, to "hot damn! yessir now we gone done it!" and then celebratory shuffling and singing along with the country music playing over the stereo. Scruffy, meanwhile, remains gruff and stoic, staring into the engine bay like he's looking through it. "Goddamn jap piece of shit," he's quietly murmured more than once.



AHH SON OF A BITCH FUCKING REALLY *ping* OH OF COURSE *CLUNK* WHAT THE FUCK? OH HELL NAH. NAH. KISS MY MOTHERFUCKIN *ping ping* ASS FUCKIN PIECE OF *CLANG* OH OK YOU CUM GUZZLIN SLUT THAT'S HOW YOU WANNA GO? OK THEN *ping* FUCK *grinding noise* FUCK YOU BIIIIITCH *more grinding* GOD DAMN IT YOU SON OF A FUCKING BITCH

it's engine swap round 2. sadly I can't stay to watch.




RRM: (ranting about something wrong with or missing from replacement engine)
Scruffy: A Honda's made to run it 'til it runs out, then get rid of it. You're fixin somethin that ain't sposed to be fixed.
RRM: Well it's a lot cheaper than buying another car.
Scruffy: No it's not. Look at your time.
RRM: It's a lotta hours but it ain't like I'm losin money.
Scruffy: Naw, see, time is....it's like a cow.
RRM: What, you mean like a moo cow?
Scruffy: How much milk she got today? What about tomorrow? And the day after?
RRM: I don't know.
Scruffy: That's right. You don't know. You can't know. So why fuck with a motor?
RRM: Because a cow ain't gonna get me to work and back.
Scruffy: *throws hands up* I tried! It's all I can do.



I think one of my regulars is slowly succumbing to dementia. I call him Interrobang because he repeats things I say in the form of an exicted question.

Him: My printer doesn't come on anymore. Do I need a new one of these? *points to power supply*
I plug it in, it powers on fine.
Me: Looks like it's powering on.
Him: It's powering on?!
Me: Yes, it is on right now.
Him: How do you know?
Me: Well, it's on, it's making noises, it says the time and date.
Him: The time and date?!
Me: Yeah. I'll try to copy something to make sure it's printing.
Him: I think I need one of these. *points to power supply*
Me: No, the power supply's fine.
Him: It's not turning on.
Me: ....It's on right now.
Him: It's on right now?!



"I'm fine. I'm healthy. I just don't like to exert myself because, in this area, if you exert yourself, you goin' to jail." - Scruffy



RRM's replacement engine just blew a head gasket. He's not taking it very well. Scruffy listened to him complain for a while and responded, "Well, I would buy you a hamburger from the restaurant. We can work better once we've ate. But the woman says I can't come back because I asked her when's she gonna lose all that damn baby weight."



for the last 20 minutes RRM has been playing john goodman's "fuck you" speech in the gambler over and over with his volume all the way up.



RRM's crazy ex has called my shop phone twice today. The first time she told me she has a friend across the street "keeping a lookout" so she knows RRM is here with his new gf, and to tell him she said hello. I didn't answer the 2nd time.

in other news rrm has a new horsemouthed gf and she hangs out in the back of the shop a lot. he says she doesn't look like much but she lets him fuck her in the ass in the garage bathroom. I said the bathroom's a convenient spot because he can sink wash his dick afterwards. He laughed and said he hadn't thought of that. homeboy's been walking around with shit-dick I guess.



"my dad says to tell you 'here's your fucking lunch'" is what my Valve Boss's 5 yr old daughter just said to me as she handed me a chili's bag.



local PD posted on facebook some stills of surveillance footage of an unidentified woman accused of stealing lottery tickets and it looks an awful lot like RRM's new gf. I tried to call him over here to look but he's playing that scene from the gambler on loop again and he can't hear me.



some lady came in here to give me a business card, and told me that the lord told her that I have a good heart and am "very clear about people." Meanwhile RRM has the stereo in the back blaring TO THE WINDOOOOOW TO THE WALL TIL THE SWEAT DROPS DOWN MY BALLS



A dude wanted to see the cheapest computer I had, which is a shitty but cosmetically nice acer laptop with windows 7 for $50 out the door. After I gave him all the specs and told him it has a 30 day warranty and such, he kept asking nitpicky questions until I told him to either hand me 50 bucks or leave because holy fuck I've never used so many words to sell something so cheap before in my life. He said he'd be back with his friend who knows stuff about computers so he could tell him if it's good or not. IT'S NOT GOOD, IT'S A $50 LAPTOP



a sad creeper guy who runs a nearby computer shop and looks like he doesn't change/shower often came here in his busted ass geo metro to ask me how I'm staying in business when he's struggling so bad. the same guy paid me a while back to install a faceplate on a laptop optical drive because he couldn't figure it out. so there's clue #1.



a lady just spat on my floor and walked out when I asked her if she knew we are in the year 2015.

she had a 2006 macbook pro, which she acknowledged she knew was a 2006 model, and was trying to sell it for $400 saying "it's only two or three years old!"



An old guy brought back a thinkpad I sold him because some of the keys aren't working. I said that's usually because something got spilled on it and he got defensive. Opened the lid and the keyboard and screen were covered in some kind of oil. I pointed it out and he said he put oil in "where it said to."

he thought the keyboard drain holes on the bottom of the laptop, which are labeled with little keyboard and water drop symbols, were oil fill ports. so he poured some kind of oil in them.

I don't know if this is the dumbest thing I've seen since I've been doing this, but it's up there.



just me and scruffy here today. scruffy don't give a damn.

scruffy: I think valve boss gonna go out of business.
me: yeah?
scruffy: yeah. sure, he might sell parts, but I don't ever see no work being done.
me: [trying to think of how to, or if I should, explain valve boss's dumb business and life decisions that have led to the current poor state of his business] ... yeah.
scruffy: see, you're here. I see you workin'. I seen you get paid. Because you work and you're polite. Yes sir, no sir, have a pleasant day, ma'am I like that dress you got on.
me: yep..
scruffy: valve boss, though, when's he work? sellin' parts ain't the same thing. in my mind, if you ain't workin', you ain't gonna be in business much longer. I know 'cause I was chief maintenance engineer of a 425 bed facility.
me: cool
scruffy: I'd do everything from the faucets to the floors. didn't give a damn.



Valve Boss wanted me to quote some guys an absurdly high price for an onsite rebuild, and when I asked him how much of that was labor in case they want an itemized quote (they did), he told me to "fucking figure that shit out, throw some bullshit on there, who gives a fuck." doubling our usual rates and parts cost still left me with $801 under what he quoted, so I added a line item for travel and entertainment for $801. strategically sent it after 5. have fun dealing with that, monday me. friday me don't give a fuck.



Car boss says RRM has been fucking up lots of electrical-related car repairs lately, so he assigned Scruffy to the task of watching over RRM and telling him to hold off on doing that sort of work until he runs it by car boss.

Scruffy: With RRM you've got to understand, he don't listen to nobody. His head's filled with his woman's britches and "darling can you take me to wal-mart" and how fast can a bike go. You tell him somethin' and he tells you "no I don't see it that way" and here come a story you didn't buy a ticket for. It's terrible.
Car boss: Well, tell him anyway.
Scruffy: I'll say, "Now RRM, we need verbal confirmation from Car Boss before we go re-wirin'." He'll say, "I know what I'm doing. My girlfriend thinks I'm smart. I can install a new ground with my shirt off." What am I supposed to do? Bust his lip?
Car boss: Maybe he needs it.
Scruffy: Aw hell, then he'd look like his girlfriend.



On my way back from doing some onsite service I stopped at a gas station and sat out in my car talking on the phone for a while before I went in. I saw two little girls get out of a crew cab truck and go in by themselves and then come out after a short while. One of the clerks came out and the girls got back in the truck and it peeled out of the parking lot. I figured they shoplifted something. but nope. the other clerk told me that the girls offered to suck their dicks for cigarettes. "you know this country's goin to shit when we got 7 year old hoes." thanks obama.

[Sandman]

A rich lady is paying me a bunch of money to make her my top priority for the day. currently downloading a fuckton of emails from multiple hotmail accounts via imap on her garbage ass hp with an amd e series (she has a brand new macbook pro but doesn't want to use it for this). then I have to look for evidence of her husband having affairs and save those individual emails + attachments to usb drive. feeling like a PI. gonna sit here narrating my day in detective noir fashion.



It happened this morning, just after my breakfast gin. Mrs. Von Schnitzel sails through my door like a tigress strolls into a Burmese orphanage — a redheaded vixen with a temper to match, and legs for miles. A dame like her could afford a better laptop than the bloody crimson one she held, but suckers were born for that Broadway smile. This day, I was a sucker. She had bad news written on her like the morning aggregator. This dame was all business. Before I could even offer to take her coat, she lets slip that Mr. Von had been putting his Schnitzel where it shouldn't be.



The case was a real brain-buster and I had smoked my wits down to the filter. I needed a breather, but the air outside was stifling. It was so hot the thermometers had gone on strike 20 degrees ago. I lit my last cigar, grabbed my hat and followed the heat over to Roscoe's for the usual - a bourbon and a plate off the all-you-can-stand buffet. This puzzle had me reeling. I hadn't felt stumped like this since I was a fresh gumshoe, with a thin mustache and a thinner wallet. But even back then, I had a sharp nose for hot leads.



A pack and a half Chesterfields ago, just as I had started to lose hope, I finally hit some fresh dirt. The message headers spilled their guts like a nervous informant in a greasy spoon with great coffee and terrible secrets. But the message content is downloading with all the urgency of the hour hand on a broken clock. Now I'm watching this thing move like an iceberg, when I'd rather make like a fruit hater and diss a pear



I had just gotten comfortable when my gal Friday sashayed through my door like a model strolling down a catwalk - a dame with kaleidoscope hair and a set of getaway sticks that won't quit. She's been nagging me to quit this dangerous PI game and get into something with a longer life expectancy, like Words With Friends. But it takes more than a pair of legs and a come hither glance to blow me off course. "I've got a case to work, doll," I whispered, loading my .38 special. "Why don't you make like a missile and cruise?"



It was the kind of cool, black night that clung to you like a fabric of smoke, deceit and murder. I'd just gathered a treasure trove of evidence - emails with attachments and notes of misplaced affection, scrolling down the screen as far as you could want 'em. I decided to examine the dirt one last time before I wrapped it up with a tidy bow for Mrs. Von Schnitzel. I opened one of the email attachments. The years hadn't been kind to this mistress of Mr. Von Schnitzel's. She had an expression like a prisoner facing the electric chair, waiting for a last-minute pardon from the governor. The victims: my eyeballs. “Guess I shoulda retired when I had the chance,” I thought out loud while loading my Thompson.



a lady brought me a trash bag of laptop parts. said she builds computers but isn't good with laptops and needs me to put hers back together. she (correctly) diagnosed a problem as a bad hard drive, so she bought a new one to put in and removed the bad hard drive. but she didn't stop there. she completely disassembled the thing, screen and all. I didn't know why until I looked through the bag and found a new 3.5" desktop hard drive. I think she thought her laptop was a mary poppins bag that could hold a desktop sized hard drive despite being thinner than one, and didn't realize there wasn't one until she took the whole thing apart.



I commissioned Scruffy to install a sink in one of the bathrooms because he's supposedly good at that sort of thing. He didn't want to go pick out a sink because "When I get there, they might tell me, 'Oh, this one has to come from Georgia.' Or 'They quit making this one 20 years ago.' Or 'This company bought that company and now they got their heads up their ass and don't make a quality product no more.'" So I got a sink and he installed it and said it was good to go. A customer just told me she used the sink and got her shoes wet. I checked the sink and the drain has nothing connected to it. It's just a pipe that dumps out on the floor. Thanks, Scruffy.



Scruffy got a haircut and shaved off his mustache. I think it's because my referring to him as Scruffy has caught on and everyone calls him that now. He just came into my office and started talking as if he we were continuing a conversation.

Scruffy: "Y'know, the boy is fucked up. Ain't got a lick of sense. I told him to get on the disability but he keeps talkin' 'bout this settlement from the inshorance company." [referring to RRM's car accident almost 2 years ago in which he injured his back]
Me: "Yeah, if he would have applied for it he'd have disability by now, unless someone came to check on him and saw him working."
Scruffy: "That ain't working. He can't even get that 6 cylinder wired right because he's always up a girl's ass. I say, 'RRM I need you to bump the ignition so I can turn this motor to compression,' but he can't manage it. Always on the phone. Talkin' to this one, talkin' to that one. This one wants a cigarette and a beer, that one wants a haircut and a hamburger. I'll tell them myself: 'His back's fucked up, his head's fucked up, he can't do nothin' right, and if he don't get off the fuckin' phone I'll bust him in his mouth so that's gonna be fucked up. Now please pay him disability, sir or ma'am.'"



it's raining. scruffy came to my office to let me know that my car is getting wet. thanks scruffy.



RRM's crazy ex told him that she and I are dating now. We reportedly had a romantic dinner and made love all night on my large boat that I spread rose petals all over, before docking in front of my secret million dollar lakefront house, and I told her I'd give her my Lexus (she thinks my Kia parked out front is a Lexus).



A guy came in a while ago looking for a fast laptop and didn't want to spend more than $300. I showed him a used HP with a 3rd gen i5 and ssd but he insisted on an i7 so I sold him an X201 with a 1st gen i7 and platter drive because the customer is always dumb/right and all that. Today he showed up with a new Alienware 17, the top end one with the gtx 980m, for me to setup and transfer his stuff. He said he was angry at first because the one I sold him wasn't as fast as his friend's desktop, so he knew it had one of the "fake Chinese i7s." His friend recommended an Alienware and when he saw the prices he understood why I didn't sell him a real i7. So he bought the best one because you can't be fucking around with that fake shit when you're serious about farmville and candy crush.



Car boss: What happened to RRM? His car's still here.
Scruffy: He's got woman problems again.
Car boss: Oh, so he's yakkin'?
Scruffy: Yessir, and he walked away from me so I couldn't hear, like I could give a god damn.
Car boss: Well, he might as well just go home and talk to her face-to-face. He's not any good to me here if he's going to be on the phone all day.
Scruffy: Naw, he ain't talkin' to her. He's talkin' to someone that he calls for advice when he has woman problems. And this person, he gives RRM advice but it must be bad. Hell, I don't know why he don't ask me. I could tell him what he needs.
Car boss: And what would Mr. Scruffy's advice be?
Scruffy: RRM has got to decide, between him and his woman, who should have the pussy. On some days, she's got it. On some days, he's got it. They're passin' it back and forth like it's a hot potato. Only one of them needs it. I ain't never seen someone so confused.




Car Boss: I see RRM's car's gone. At least he sold a car before he left. How was he today?
Scruffy: Not good. He's got pussy problems again.
Car Boss: Aw, jeez.
Scruffy: He don't eat breakfast. He don't eat lunch. He stays on the phone. I'll say, 'RRM, come across the street with me and let's get some breakfast.' He'll say, 'No, I have to walk away from you and be on this phone because my girlfriend's pussy is out of service and I need someone to talk me through it.' I tell him he's got to eat but the phone is more important to him. I do my best but I just can't understand it.
Car Boss: Well, I'm just glad he got a car sold.
Scruffy: But he didn't eat so what good is it?
Car Boss: It means we can all eat for a little while longer.
Scruffy: WE will eat. HE will ask his pussy expert buddy if he should have a hamburger or a pizza, and he won't be able to eat neither because no one showed him how. It's fuckin' stupid.



RRM is a sad mess. He broke up with his new gf. The straw that broke the horseface's back was she spent all their money and traded their food stamps for pills so RRM couldn't even afford a turkey for thanksgiving. And his crazy ex is sending him pictures of some dude she says is her new rich bf, and a car that's still on a car dealer lot she says he bought for her. She says she broke off the engagement to me because the new guy is richer and hotter. She also says she lives in Miami now and he believes all of this even though he saw her walking down the street in front of our building yesterday. His voice is all hoarse from crying and yelling. Scruffy offered to fix the problem by breaking RRM's phone and buying him a hamburger, but RRM declined both so Scruffy got mad and left for the day.



so much drama this morning. first I had to deal with angry senile old people who seemed to have me and my shop confused with someone and someplace else, and the cops because old people said I threatened them (I didn't). then RRM was screaming at his crazy ex on the phone about her lying about getting a car or something, and it sounded like she put her bf on the phone because he started yelling for this person to stop talking and come over and fight. "I ain't scared! Bring your big, crack-headed ass! I'll knock your fronts out!" and now he is pacing outside and occasionally looking towards the road with his hands on his hips like he's expecting someone.

Meanwhile, Scruffy remains seated in the car office, calmly reading through a harbor freight catalog. I asked if he knew what was going on with RRM. "I dunno. More women problems, I guess. He can't be helped." *turns page* "That's what happens when you settle down with the first trashy gal you meet that lets you put your pecker in her, instead of waiting for a nicer one to come along." scruffy's weird but he can be very wise.



RRM isn't here today. Car Boss told him if he came in today so Car Boss could take the day off, he'd let him finish the paper work and such on the sale that Car Boss started last night for extra commission. RRM said no because it's his day off and that's that. Meanwhile the dude is glueing his fucking shoes together because he can't afford to buy another pair. idgi

Scruffy is here with his usual level of enthusiasm, grim and silent, sipping a mountain dew and staring out of the window off into the distance. He looks like he's thinking something profound and ominous, but so far all he's had to say was "I need my jeep to have more ass. There's a place in Sanford that has a chip for it. They want $299 for the chip." *sips and stares in silence*



RRM told me that he kicked his gf to the curb because her pill habit was getting out of control. Then he admitted that she actually left him to get back with an ex who just got a better job and bought a house. They are still on friendly enough terms to have occasional 3somes with the nasty meth-mouthed sister of his previous ex in exchange for painkillers. RRM is very sad and lonely but he's hoping that, now that he has a free craigslist hot tub outside his trailer, he can attract more nasty trailer park ladies.

[Sandman]

RRM + Scruffy happenings so far today:

When I got here, RRM looked & sounded frustrated as he was doing something to his girlfriend's work truck (she delivers auto parts) while his gf yelled that she had to go to work and Scruffy stood there holding a water hose and shaking his head. RRM came inside briefly and ranted under his breath on his way to the door to the garage "it ain't gonna buff out you stupid asshole, someone oughtta buff YOU out."

Turns out, his gf hit a pole this morning because she was zonked out on oxy, and RRM was trying to pull the dent but she didn't want him to because she was late for a delivery. Scruffy was mad because he's pretty sure it was just some paint marks that would have buffed out but "Nooooobody listens to [Scruffy]. Ever-one just does what they want 'cause they think they're such a good mechanic. Well, when you drive a piece-of-shit Honda that's taking up the lift for three days so no one can get any work done, you can't call yourself a good mechanic. What you can call yourself is [RRM], and what [RRM] is, well, you can't ask him because he's on the phone."



RRM and his gf were talking about their nasty hot tub shenanigans and gf brought up that the water is getting "a little funky."

Scruffy: Your pH balance is probably off. Whatchyer gonna need is a shock treatment. Now, I don't got no hot tub or no swimmin pool, so I don't know what kind of instruments and apparatus it takes, but what I do know is it takes chlorine.
RRM: Do they got chlorine at Lowe's or the Home Depot?
Scruffy: Yes, it's possible they do.
RRM: They probably want half your damn rent for it.
GF: I heard you can use bleach.
Scruffy: It could work but you ain't s'posed to.
GF: Well I don't care as long as it don't burn my cooch.
Scruffy: It shouldn't. Not if you use it properly.
RRM: Woo-hoo! I know we already got some bleach! C'mon, baby, let's go get that bad boy ready for tonight!
GF: I already shaved last night!
RRM: That's good! But I'm talkin 'bout the tub.

Scruffy wandered over to my office after the other two left.

Scruffy: If I hear another fucking thing about that girl's cooter, I'm gonna retire and y'all can cut your own damn grass.



one of my regulars was in here - a polite old british gentleman who's some bigwig with micron semiconductor (I usually help him with complicated things like scanning and attaching things to emails), and RRM walks by talking on the phone.

"Shooo, baby, with the money you could make selling that pussy, you could get yourself a good lawyer and get those kids back for sure!"

So..sorry about Florida. I need to wall off the hallway again.



A lady came by to drop off some paint for the car dealership and needed a check for it. So I looked around the back and found Scruffy, who said he didn't know nothin' about it and that was the end of that conversation. I called Car Boss, who said he'd call Scruffy. Scruffy finally emerged from the back to tell the impatiently waiting paint lady that he don't know nothin' 'bout no checks but he'll write one.

From my office I just overheard paint lady telling Scruffy he needs to sign the check.
Scruffy: No, ma'am, I can't sign a check.
Paint Lady: But you have to sign it. I can't take a check that's not signed.
Scruffy: It says our name right up here.
Paint Lady: I know, but it has to be signed. Just scribble your name right here.
Scruffy: Naw, I can't do that. I don't own this place and I didn't order no paint.

That went on for a while before the lady finally let out a frustrated grunt and left.




Valve Boss likes to fuck with RRM, like RRM doesn't already have it bad enough. I unloaded a 150lb spool piece (basically a pipe with flanged ends) from his truck today because he's too old to lift things. he thought it'd be real funny to ask RRM to move it for him and then laugh and laugh when he couldn't pick it up. dude weighs like 125 lbs and has a bad back cmon man.



someone came in because a page he's trying to load on his company's website is coming up with a 404 error. he said he was on the phone with comcast for 2 hours trying to get this resolved and they were a bunch of jerks. so I explained what 404 means and it's not a problem with the ISP or the computer.

"no, no, no, see, look" *logs into yahoo email* "see, the instructions say to go here and click on that link. why would they say to do it if there's a problem with it? something is stopping me from doing my job and I'm starting to feel like you and all these people are in on it."

oh no I've been made, my cover's blown, where's the cyanide pill



an antique cop car that looked like the one in the andy griffith show pulled into the lot, and a young guy who looked like he just stepped out of a time machine from the late 80s got out of it, wearing terminator style sunglasses, a leather jacket with spikes, white hightops, fingerless gloves and a haircut like vanilla ice. he took a picture of a crown vic, then lit a cigarette with an oversized zippo and left. shit was bizarre.



pretty sure I just walked in on RRM's gf masturbating in the valve office. I turned the light on and she was leaning back in the chair with one leg on the desk and pulling a hand out of her pants. she said she was warming her hands up.

I told boss we should have a lock on that door. now I have to disinfect everything.



I was joking about it with RRM when he got back from picking up lunch, and she said "I was touching my underwear, not my coochie. You'd know if I was fingerin' 'cause you'd hear it. That bitch stays wet" to which RRM replied "Hell yeah it does! Slick as a snail, and it leaves a trail!"



BOSS SAYS THE REASON WE DIDN'T GET A JOB I QUOTED IS BECAUSE I DIDN'T TYPE THE QUOTE IN ALL CAPS. GOING FORWARD, EVERYTHING WILL BE TYPED IN UPPER CASE. IF YOU AIN'T YELLIN, YOU AIN'T SELLIN.



Scruffy talking to a customer:
"I'll tell you like it is, ma'am. I clean the cars. I detail the cars. I get 'em shining so pretty that they sell themselves. And that's how I sell the cars. But, they ain't showed me how to go no further. It don't make no sense to me because, you're here, I'm here, no one else is here, so I can't sell you the car. And I don't do the computer. So you just gonna have to wait for Car Boss or RRM. And while you wait, you can go out and look at the car some more, because it's very clean."



the owner of the chinese place left a voicemail on the shop phone last night asking why I no order no more and what can he do to make it bettah. this confirms I was ordering WAY too much chinese food.



Scruffy: what you got them surgical gloves on for?
Me: So I don't break a nail.
Scruffy: Shit, you look like you could eat a nail and shit out a dime.

I guess that's a compliment

[Sandman]

I'm pretty sure RRM's brain is broken.

He recently turned down 2 job offers, his reason being that he doesn't want to leave because he needs access to a dealer tag to sell his own vehicles. He's been very busy doing repairs and painting cars and such, and has sold a few cars in the past couple weeks, but he hasn't been paid in over a month. Car Boss says he can't pay him because the company hasn't made a profit.

RRM is late on his rent so he asked Car Boss to front him some money. Car Boss says he's broke and so is the company. RRM asked his dad for a loan, and his dad told him that he's told him too many times to quit working for free and wouldn't help him. RRM called up his friend to bitch about the situation. Friend had him come over and do some work for him. When his friend tried to pay him, RRM wouldn't accept it because they're friends.

Now he is in the back sanding a truck to re-paint it for the 2nd or 3rd time because they don't have a paint booth and Car Boss was bitching about flaws in the paint. And he knows he's likely not getting paid for this work.

At this point I think the best thing I can do for him is take him out back behind the shop and put him down.



RRM just stormed off because Car Boss waived the dealer fee on a sale, and the dealer fee is RRM's pay, so he didn't get paid for another sale.

Yesterday he told me that his two trailer park gals were giving him job advice after a 3some and that's when he decided he's only going to sell from now on, so Car Boss can't say he sold cars short and didn't make enough profit to pay him. Yesterday morning he just sat in the office and waited for someone to come onto the lot, then went out and had the deal closed in about 15 minutes including the test drive. To compare, Car Boss usually spends at least 45 minutes trying to talk the customer into submission.

When he came in to get the paperwork started, Car Boss decided he should go talk to the customers because he didn't feel RRM spent enough time with them. 20 minutes later he had them looking at another car and then they left. So RRM got pissed and told Car Boss he's a shitty salesman and a shitty business owner and left. He apologized to Car Boss this morning, but then the thing this morning happened so lol

I'd like to think that's the final straw, but he'll be back tomorrow.



My dad came in and wanted me to make copies of some photos so he can send them to his uncle, along with a 43-page letter he wrote about Jesus. I think more than half of it is a racist rant about how he tried to fight his black neighbor a week or 2 ago and almost went to jail. My printer is only good for b&w documents and I didn't feel like fiddling with the settings, so pretty much all the photos are blurry gray blobs and you can't make anything out. He's sending them anyway, with detailed descriptions of what is going on in each of the photos written on the backs, and a note that says "sorry we look like jigaboos."

The uncle he's sending all this to is married to a black woman so I don't imagine this is going to go over very well.



I had a customer who sounded just like Jim Varney and said "durn" a lot. He was making my day until he started crying.



Interrobang: How did you move that stuff?
Me: I selected it
Interrobang: Selected it!?
Me: Yeah, I clicked on it. Then I hit control x
Interrobang: X!?
Me: Then I clicked over here and I hit control v
Interrobang: What's it doing now?
Me: It's printing.
Interrobang: Printing!?

I tried to get him to say "Interrobang!?" but he only got all squinty eyed and asked why he'd need one of those.



"You gotta caulk every fuckin' sink in a nursing home, because the residents, they're older than you and me. They don't wash their hands like you would or I would. They use the sink for support, puttin' weight on the front of it because their legs and back ain't what they used to be. So you gotta have that extra support. And it keeps the water from going behind the sink and causing the brace to droop. But some folk, they think the caulking looks tacky, and they say, 'Don't caulk the sinks, let's just get in and out.' And then, well, there's a goddamned catastrophe because someone with a New York haircut is more worried about things looking pretty than things being sturdy and working right." - Scruffy on the dangers of prioritizing form over function.



today an old biker lady who probably wasn't as old as she looked brought in a laptop and said rather sternly that she hopes I'm not a nosy person who looks through peoples pictures and personal files. I booted it up after she left and the desktop background was a photo of her on a bed, spread eagle, wearing nothing but a leather corset.



Scruffy: You got a shovel wichya?
Me: *checks pockets* No.
Scruffy: Come on, man, I mean in your car.
Me: No.
Scruffy: Aw, hell. I couldn't find one in the back, neither. This ain't gonna be fun.
Me: Why do you need a shovel?
Scruffy: There's a dead cat, and it's gonna swell and smell terrible if I don't bury it soon. I don't wanna use my hands, but what else can I do?
Me: I'll call Valve Boss and tell him to bring a shovel.
Scruffy: By that time, who knows what'll happen. I'll just grit my teeth and do it.
Me: You're going to dig a hole with your hands?
Scruffy: Hmm. I know I shouldn't. But I think I could. *slowly wanders off*

Scruffy ended up just parking a car over the dead cat.



Car Boss does this real annoying thing where sometimes he tries to say the word you're about to say as you're saying it, like "I'll be leaving (leaving) early (early) tonight (toda- tonight)." So when he starts doing that I'll start saying random off the wall shit and it always takes him a moment to realize I'm fucking with him.



"What the hell's the point of life if you ain't livin'?" - Scruffy, talking about his refusal to obey his doctor's order to quit smoking cigarettes



A guy brought in his laptop last night saying it didn't have an operating system. I fired it up this morning and it booted to the windows 7 desktop. Called him and told him Windows is already on it and asked if he wanted me to upgrade it to 10.

Guy: "No, I know Windows is on it, and I don't want Windows 10. It just needs the operating system."
Me: "What do you mean by operating system?"
Guy: "You don't know what an operating system is?"
Me: "I know what it is, but evidently your definition is different than mine, so I need to know what you think an operating system is so I can do what you're asking me to do."
Guy: "Microsoft."
Me: "You mean Microsoft Office?"
Guy: "No it's not an office computer, it just needs Microsoft."
Me: "I mean Microsoft Word and Excel. Is that what you're asking for?"
Guy: "*sigh* I don't know how I can speak any more plainly to you. If you can't get Microsoft on there, I'll take it to someone who can."
Me: "No problem, I'm on it. It'll be ready in 20 minutes."

Just set the desktop bg to the microsoft logo and created a shortcut to microsoft.com.



pretty sure Microsoft guy wanted to punch me, but I figured out by "Microsoft" he actually meant "Google" and by "operating system" he actually meant "IE home page."



Valve Boss just realized RRM is handy with a wrench so he's been putting him to work on cars and valves and such. I just heard this exchange down the hall:

Car Boss: He's been a real busy beaver here lately. I don't know how you do it. He sure doesn't work like that for me.
Valve Boss: I pay him.
Car Boss: Well, be careful with that, he might start expecting it every time.

Ha yeah can't have someone expecting to be paid for work all the time

[Sandman]

Some people had an appointment at the car dealership this morning. Car Boss didn't bother telling RRM about it because he figured RRM is always here early anyway. He didn't realize that RRM is off doing a valve service job with Valve Boss. Scruffy doesn't want to tell him that because he doesn't want to interrupt whatever activity he's got going on, or tell the customer what's going on because he doesn't want to upset them, so he's just letting them sit over there while he wanders around.

I should probably call Car Boss and let him know what's going on, but he keeps using my vacuum cleaner without asking so fuck 'im.



scruffy just went to the diner across the street. customers are still sitting in the office unattended.



Valve Boss says RRM was very helpful on the valve service job today, but he doesn't want to take him again unless it's a short trip because he talks nonstop about fighting and tits. It was fun to hear someone else rant about it for a change.



some local municipality has an emergency situation because their main valve was sort-of working before boss and RRM tried to rebuild it, and it turned out that the insides were trashed and irreparable and now it's not working at all. and I guess things are blowing up or something. so I've been talking to eleventy people yesterday and today to get this valve shipped out via air freight today (the normal lead time on this valve is 3-5 weeks). it's costing a bunch of money and I'm still not sure it's going to go out today but we're telling them it is anyway.

unfortunately I was too busy with that to catch all the car dealership drama, but I did catch a glimpse of a shirtless RRM punching the shit out of a truck tailgate earlier.



"if her ass get any wider she gonna fall out her own pussy" is what I just heard a lady say to someone on the phone as she walked in.



Scruffy asked me to diagnose a problem he was having with his Jeep's radiator fan the other day, which would normally be weird but I get asked a lot of questions about things outside of my wheelhouse because he and RRM assume I know everything about everything so I'm used to it. I guessed it was a bad PWM relay but then he wanted me to print up instructions and diagrams and stuff and I quickly regretted opening my mouth.

Today he left at his usual time, but then came back and took some trash out. I asked if he needed help.

"No, a dark cloud's followin' me, I don't want you gettin' near it." It's hard to tell with Scruffy but he sounded upset. After he came back in I asked what's up. He bent down with his hands on my counter and paused, looking down at the floor like he was going to tell me someone died or he'd just been diagnosed with cancer or some other horrible thing.

"My cooling fan's been acting up. And no one can help me. You say it's a relay, RRM says it's a relay, Car Boss says it's a relay. But which relay? No one can say. So what can I do? I gotta get home, so I was driving, and the damn cooling fan done busted a hole in the radiator. Coolant's everywhere. It's back there now. There's a shroud that needs to come off so I can get to it and see what's going on. *shakes head* But it has to be done. No one can help me now." Then he left in a truck from the car lot.



RRM: I don't know what's gonna happen today.
Scruffy: I'LL TELL YOU WHAT'S GONNA HAPPEN!
RRM: Okay, what?
Scruffy: THE ALTERNATOR ON THAT GODDAMN CAR IS GONNA GET CHANGED!
RRM: What car?
Scruffy: WHATEVER FUCKIN' CAR!
RRM: I kinda need to know what car's got the alternator problem and I don't know why you're yelling at me.
Scruffy: Because if I talk normal, nothing gets done.
RRM: It's not going to get done until you tell me which car you're talking about.
Scruffy: Hell, I don't know. Car Boss said the alternator's shot and told me to make sure it gets done. He didn't mention which one got the shot alternator. So fuck it and let's go to the restaurant.



yesterday Valve Boss was sending an email to the sales director of the company we distribute for trying to get better terms for one large order. he was sending it from my email address as he often does. I was watching him type it via teamviewer and on top of a lot of spelling, formatting and grammar mistakes, he was blaming someone in our regional sales office for all his problems and called him an "antsy little twink."

so I unplugged the cable modem. oh no, internet's down. valve boss said he'd finish the email today. after he left I re-wrote it and we got our old terms plus an additional 15% discount to help chase a competing manufacturer off the bid. he says I done good. but the only reward I got was a bottle of jack daniel's.



just realized we potentially lost a nice parts order 2 months ago because boss forwarded the email to himself to remind himself to do it the next day, and then replied to himself instead of the guy who requested the quote.



Scruffy was staring out of the window silently for a few minutes and then had this to say:

"The only reason train tracks are as wide as they are is 'cause of the rocks. Over the years, the rocks get buried or carried away, and the weeds move in and the tracks get narrower. Then you just got two rails hidden in a jungle."

Then he started talking about RRM's girlfriend's adderall habit. Not sure if the train tracks thing was a metaphor for that or his brain and how his train of thought works.



I have 0 motivation to do any work today so I'm just gonna binge watch the 3rd season of black sails.



boss wants me to type up some kind of of submittal but I'm not sure what he's talking about and captain flint is up to some serious shit right now



Scruffy is outside offering moral support to an angry woman whose car is stuck in a ditch. Car Boss offered to try to pull her car out with a winch, but "she was so upset and so rude that I was worried about the liability with being involved and I'm glad she's stuck. Fuck her."



I just sent in a PO to the factory for valves that I gave myself a price break on, and two large pizzas delivered, because sales engineer guy told me to do whatever I have to do to get the sale.

Lady in sales office: Where did you get these prices? I'm confused. We don't deliver pizza. Help.
Me: Sales Engineer told me to do what it takes to get this sale. Competitor was going very low. I had to match their price, give them freight allowed and throw in 2 pizzas. The customer doesn't care who delivers the pizzas.
Sales Lady: Sales Engineer says he did not quote pizza. You will have to arrange to have it delivered yourself.
Me: Sales Lady, I'd hate to lose this sale to Competitor over 2 pizzas. Could you please ask Sales Manager to make an exception this time?
Sales Manager (forwarded from Sales Lady): Tell him to order the pizzas and revise PO with cost deducted.

funny thing is, they're so distracted by the pizza item that they don't seem to notice/care that I added options and upgraded materials to 316 stainless, and used a price that's lower than what we were quoted for cheaper options & materials. this is powerful magic...I don't know if I can wield it responsibly



Car Boss doesn't like that Valve Boss has been paying RRM for work because RRM was able to save up enough money to go on vacation and Car Boss has to come in on a Saturday. "That's what happens when you give him money. He starts thinking he's a somebody."

Scruffy is also upset because Valve Boss pays RRM and not him, which turned into Car Boss trying to explain to Scruffy that he can't expect someone to pay him if he's not working for that person, which briefly turned into a those-damned-liberals rant but Scruffy didn't understand and he abruptly walked away.



Me: Can I help you?
Scruffy: Nossir.
Me: Okay, I just saw you standing there and thought maybe you were lost.
Scruffy: It's cooler on this side of the building.
Me: *puts on sunglasses* hell yeah it is 8)
Scruffy: ...
Me: 8)
Scruffy: ...
Me: 8)
Scruffy: haw haw haw you ain't right

[Sandman]

RRM took his girlfriend to SC for a mini-vacation and said she ran out of pills and almost got arrested twice. I didn't ask for details.



RRM just told me his v-card story.

When he was 12 he sat next to an older girl on the school bus who had some kind of learning disability. He's not sure what her condition was but she wasn't "all-the-way retarded." He started sitting next to her because she got picked on a lot and so did he so he could relate to her on that. But then she'd make him cry by calling him gay over and over.

One day he got fed up with that and told her to pull her shorts down so he could show her he wasn't gay. She wouldn't do it on the bus but she told him he could come with her to her house on Wednesday because then they'd have an hour to themselves before her parents got home. So he endured her calling him gay for a few more days before he got to go to her house and have awkward sex with her. Afterwards he stopped being her friend because she'd still occasionally call him gay even though she knew he wasn't and that was real mean of her.



Someone called and asked if I could respond to their quote request by 5 today. I said I never got it. She said she faxed it. I asked her to please fax it again or email it to me. She wouldn't send it again because she already sent it once and she knows it went through and she knows how to use a fax machine. I said that's great but I don't have it so maybe it got lost or something so please send it again. I ALREADY SENT YOU THE FAX WHY DO YOU KEEP ASKING ME TO SEND IT WHEN YOU KNOW YOU GOT IT ok ok you're right I was just kidding around this whole time, I will get you the quote today.

unless someone has a better idea in the next few minutes I'm going to send over a formal quote for a big hug, qty 1, $0 ea, freight allowed



scruffy and I are getting pizza and RRM and Car Boss aren't allowed into our lunch bunch because Car Boss talks too much and RRM doesn't eat like a real man.



I tried to give RRM some pizza but it has jalapenos and hot sauce and RRM doesn't like spicy things. Scruffy was right.



it's just scruffy and I today. We ordered more pizza and he's talking about how it must be awful to have lady parts. Somehow at the diner this morning he learned about bacterial vaginosis from a waitress. "She said her flora was throwed off." I don't know what else he said because I was too busy trying to imagine how the fuck this conversation comes up with a diner waitress.



my fancypants british rich guy came in today and asked if the smaller gentleman and his girlfriend were able to earn enough money to afford a proper attorney. last time he came in RRM walked by him while on the phone with his gf telling her she'd have to sell her pussy to get a lawyer and get her kids back. I'm surprised he came back.



I'm upgrading my friend's 2008 macbook right now. He makes like 250k+ but he doesn't want to buy a new computer because "it's not like a Ferrari where you can show it off to people. you tell someone 'hey I have a brand new macbook pro' and they tell you to eat shit."



scruffy wants pizza again. I said no and he's mad. he said he's going to wendy's and will bring me back a hamburger so I can remember what it's like to eat.



Scruffy handed me a loaf of sara lee butter bread while I was on the phone with a customer with no explanation given. I'm not going to ask why because it adds a sense of wonder to my life.



Scruffy: I got somethin' for you to laugh at. RRM called me last night, said the bitch won't give him no pussy so he's going to jail.
Me: ???
Scruffy: HAW HAW HAW HAW HAW maaaan, that boy's crazy. He needs to check himself in somewhere.
Me: Is he in jail?
Scruffy: I dunno but that's what he needs. Pussy rehab. HAW HAW HAW



RRM isn't in jail. He called multiple people last night when we was frustrated about horseface not putting out. He says his dad gave him the best advice, which was to get dressed up nice and leave for an hour, and then come back with a single rose and say it took him an hour to find the perfect rose for her. that's what he did and it didn't work but she was way nicer the next morning.

I asked him if he calls people for help every time his gf doesn't put out. He said he was just really frustrated so he didn't know what else to do. I told him I'd give him 50 bucks if he calls 911 next time and the recording ends up on the news. and now we wait



RRM and horseface broke up again. He says he kicked horseface to the curb because she told him she couldn't help with the rent because she spends all her money on adderall, but then he found out she gave money to her other boyfriend. Now he's all mopey.



horseface and RRM are yelling at each other in the back. not sure what it's about but I heard "If you think your pussy is so good then put a fuckin' for sale sign on it and see what kinda offers you get!"



horseface is here loudly trying to get money out of RRM.

yesterday she walked here from her job about 3 miles away and asked me for a ride home. I said neigh. then she ranted like a crazy person while I ignored her until scruffy showed back up and gave her a ride, because he is a gentleman.

I'm guessing eating 10-12 20mg adderall tabs a day for months and then dropping it cold turkey could make someone act a little out of sorts.



Someone brought me a laptop to clean the junkware and such out of, but he took the hard drive out before bringing it to me and doesn't seem convinced that I need it to do what he wants me to do.

The same guy did the same thing a year or 2 ago.



Scruffy didn't show up this morning and wasn't answering his phone, so RRM went to his house to check on him and found him dead. He said he was going to die soon. I guess he wasn't kidding.



Scruffy's son and RRM used to be best buds but had a falling out when scruffy jr got hooked on drugs. They talked yesterday for the first time in over 5 years and now they're buds again. They were just outside hugging it out

I'm bout to throw a bunch of screwdrivers in the trash in honor of Scruffy.



Queen Natitsya came by to show me her new iphone 6s with a 24k gold housing. and she's back to driving his mercedes. I asked him why he's buying her stuff after she stole 6 figures in cash from him. "It's the blowjobs, man." she must be pretty good.



According to RRM, Car Boss is happy about being able to save the amount he was paying Scruffy, which was $100/wk and $50 per sale. If that's saving money, his margins must be shit. Of course he wants RRM to do everything Scruffy was doing without additional pay.

Also allegedly Scruffy had almost 300k in savings from selling property, was collecting disability, and lived a very inexpensive lifestyle in a trailer on a small lot. Despite not having to work, he drove over an hour each way to get here. Dude was probably spending half as much in gas getting here and back as he was making. But he still showed up every day to impart on us his sage-like wisdom.



RRM's ex is in the parking lot of the diner across the street being publicly affectionate with some goony looking dude with a pony tail and jorts and RRM is pacing the hallway like a gorilla



now he's in the back listening to nickelback really loud. overheard him on the phone with someone earlier though. "She's having that douchebag take her there for her birthday just like I used to do every year." it's her birthday and every year for the occasion all she has to look forward to is you taking her to a dinky ass diner with old people and shit food lol no wonder she had your dumb ass arrested



Welp, RRM blew up at a customer when she asked a question about financing. Then he apologized and went on an angry rant to her about how Car Boss doesn't pay him and his ex was "parading her titties" across the street and his current(?) gf won't go to rehab. I couldn't see the lady but I imagine she just stood there staring in confused amazement.

I suggested he go home but he's still here, scheming about how he's going to buy a mustang to make her jealous.



RRM is irate today because the grass has been growing like crazy and it's his job to cut it now (without pay). I mentioned that it's weird it's still growing that fast because it hasn't rained that much in the past week and the neighbors' grass doesn't seem to be growing as fast as ours. Then he told me that he saw Scruffy fertilizing the grass a few days before he died.

I thought that was funny and wondered if he did it on purpose, knowing he was going to retire from life soon and leave the grass cutting to RRM. Then I remembered how he used to play pranks with the sprinklers, like turning them on when I was outside and such. So I checked the sprinkler panel. They're set to turn on at 7 pm like usual, and also 4 am, not like usual. Scruffy is fucking with us from beyond the grave.

I left it like that because a) I don't know what I'm doing and b) i'm gonna lmao every time I see RRM mowing the grass now



the grass is tall again and it's raining and RRM is PISSED

I'm gonna get to hear the property owner bitch about the grass when he comes in today to pick up his check. I doubt he'll buy my "we're being haunted by the ghost of Scruffy" story.



Boss had a meltdown earlier over the insurance company wanting to charge $100 to have 2 companies listed as insured on the COI, because he could not understand that an apartment complex and its property management company are two different companies. Multiple people tried to explain this to him until he threw a tantrum and the insurance company dropped us.



RRM and Horseface are having sex in the bathroom rn. I know this because I just went back there and heard "put your foot up on the toilet baby"



A doctor brought me his non-booting laptop and said it's very important he at least gets all the files off it because it has patient information and important business things on it, so important in fact that he bought a new laptop and is having me transfer his files to it while I work on his old one because he can't afford the downtime.

There's nothing but porn on here, categorized in oddly specific folders like "anal with legs back," "big clits big lips," "big clits only," "public pissing in skirts," etc.



I got a bunch of emails from comcast about copyright infringement claims because porn doctor's laptop rebooted some time after hours yesterday and he had bittorrent in startup lol oops sorry for stealing "big clit wonder" etc.

[Sandman]

Customer: Hey I need you to put the warranty letter I sent you on your letterhead and sign it please, for the valves we purchased 6 months ago.
Me: The warranty doesn't cover the stuff in that letter. I sent you the factory warranty information.
Customer: Thanks but it doesn't say it covers the stuff that I need it to cover.
Me: The factory warranty doesn't cover that stuff and we don't offer any warranty in addition to the factory warranty.
Customer: Ok but can you just say that you do cover all of that?
Me: No.
Customer: I mean, the letter is already written, you just need to put it on your letterhead, put a signature on it, and send it back to me.
Me: Yeah, I'm not doing that.
Customer: I don't get why you're refusing to send me the warranty letter.
Me: Ok, I'll do it, but I'm going to change the language so that it's clear that we will not do any of the things that it currently says we will do.
Customer: That'll work, thanks.



Some guy with slurred speech says he's going to come get in my face because I won't install Windows for him for free.

He said he came in a while ago and I told him his hard drive was bad, but I wanted shhthree.. four hundred fifty fuckin dollars to swap it out, and that's burrshit. He found one online for like, a LOT less than that, and put it in all by himself. And the shit ain't workin.

So, because I didn't tell him swapping out the hard drive also involved installing the OS, he says I'm required by implied warranty law to perform the work for free or else be fined for up to, like, a million dollars or some shit. It's a lot of trouble, pardner, you don't want it.



Boss suspects his wife has been having an affair with the lady she buys healing crystals from. He's upset about this because the crystal lady is "a smoked out one-hander" and his wife should be including him in the fun.



lady friend needs help writing a paper about open source software. I've been working on it between customers. Here's part of it:

By 1995, everyone had caught on to the fact that shareware is super lame, so piracy was the only real choice left for hard working commoners trying to pull themselves up by their bootstraps like their grandpappies before them. The problem with piracy in 1995 was that law enforcement actually cared about it back then, and catching a fine and even a prison sentence was a real possibility if one were caught illegally downloading or sharing software and other digital intellectual property. Remember that kid who was on the news for getting arrested for downloading an MP3? Know where he’s at now? Exactly. No one knows. He was presumably never heard from again. That was just for a song. We can safely assume that anyone downloading expensive commercial software was dealt with much more harshly, perhaps by firing squad or being jettisoned into space. Needless to say, there weren’t a lot of people teaching themselves how to use Photoshop back then. 1995 was a dark time for digital art. Thankfully, a year later, Spencer Kimball and Peter Mattis released a free alternative to Photoshop called GIMP. And Spencer and Peter saw that it was good. Then, they blessed the public with the source code and said, “Be fruitful and increase features in number and fill the menus in the toolbars, and let the tools increase in the toolbox." And Spencer and Peter saw that this was also good.

Not everyone sees open source as a wonderful blessing from the technogods. Its curmudgeonly opponents liken it to socialism or communism. When asked why they hate good things, these octogenarian contrarians are likely to produce their pocket-sized copy of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged and quote it in its entirety.

welp congrats on your A, lady fried



A system engineer at nasa says he was referred to me by name by the valve manufacturer to answer a bunch of technical questions. I tried my hardest to not sound dumb. I failed miserably.



boss saw one of my orders from yesterday and got upset because I didn't do it exactly how he told me, even though we're going to make more profit and didn't have to do any shady shit like he wanted to do. I told him if I always did things the way he asked them to be done, he'd be out of business by now because he makes terrible decisions so stop trying to micro-manage. then he looked sad and said "I guess you know what you're doing" and left.

now I kinda feel bad but at least he didn't cry this time.



boss whining because his payment was short $50 because he wrote a 3 where an 8 should have been. they cleared our credit hold and told us to just add it to the next payment. but somehow this is them "trying to stick it to us" now he's writing an angry email to someone



Car Boss's alcoholic sister-in-law has been hanging out here for a week or so because her internet at home isn't fast enough to do her job or something. Today she seems more drunk than usual, and she's loudly arguing with Car Boss. He wants her to leave because he has to wait for her to "unhook" her computer every time he needs to do something and she isn't leaving and one of them farted loudly during the conversation



some time ago, a lady came in with her laptop in pieces in a bag. she completely disassembled it - including the lid assembly - trying to figure out where to put a 3.5" hard drive.

that same lady just came in with a graphics card with a DMS59 port, and wanted an adapter to connect that to wifi. I asked if she meant VGA. No, wireless internet.

I tried to explaining it to her but whoever sold her that card did a really good job of convincing her that it's an all-in-one card that does graphics, wifi, sound and VoIP.



I was just on the phone with a navy purchaser while RRM stood outside of my office yelling at/about his girlfriend over the phone. navy guy seemed both amused and genuinely concerned.



"girl, you know it's bad when you smell your own ass"
"I use peppermint foot spray. yeah it's for your feet, but you can spray it anywhere."

-lady sitting alone in the car office on the phone



There's a weird smelly fat man who comes in sometimes. He works out of his garage fixing computers and is apparently very bad at it. One time he had to have me swap out a laptop dvd drive because he couldn't figure out how to take the bezel off. He usually just comes in to brag about how much he knows, creep out my customers, and ask me how much I charge for stuff so he can tell people how much cheaper he is.

Today he came in to tell me about these wondrous new things called copper shims and how they can solve GPU overheating problems. I told him I use them all the time and he asked how I get them to stay in place. I told him to use gorilla glue. "Gorilla glue? Uh, yeah, that's what I use too, great stuff!"

I thought it was kind of silly at the time but gorilla glue might actually work.



today I learned that car boss, an old ass white conservative who regurgitates bill oreilly and competes in calf roping competitions, listens to rap. I heard him tell RRM that 50 cent's album get rich or die tryin is his favorite album, and I had to walk over and make sure that was actually him talking. he says he got a new girlfriend who has gotten him into salsa dancing and rap.



Car Boss's gf and RRM have been chatting for over an hour now, mostly about RRM's girlfriend (I infer from context clues that car boss's gf is RRM's gf's kid's grandmother). I haven't been paying much attention but then something grabbed me. Keep in mind this is a 60+ yr old Cuban lady.

RRM: And she ain't doing nothing around the house, or having dinner ready when I get home. It's always, "I need cigarettes. I need pills." Never, "What do you need?" Hell, she don't even shave anymore.
Lady: *gasp* I tell her, I always tell her, you gotta shave the pussy.
RRM: Yeah, well, she don't anymore just because she's lazy.
Lady: I told her how I shave my pussy. I said, "You leave a little up here so you look like a woman and not a girl. But only up here. Down here, the pussy is shaved."
RRM: I like it all the way shaved.
Lady: Then that's what she should do. If her man likes a clean baby pussy then she should have a clean baby pussy. She doesn't work so there's no excuse.
RRM: Well, callin it a baby pussy is making me think maybe it oughtta have a little fuzz.
Lady: Tell her to keep the pussy hair up here, not down here. And never around the asshole. She don't listen to you so I'll tell her. I'll say, "You going to lose your man if you don't shave your pussy and asshole." Maybe it work? I don't know.



Listening to Car Boss talking with a fellow car dealership owner. Car Boss said he used to have a maintenance guy (Scruffy) who practically worked for nothing because he was just happy to have something to do.

Other Car guy: "That's what you need. Real old school. They do it right. Kids today, they think they need money. We work just to work!"

*drives off in amg e-class*



Some guy tried to run RRM over in the parking lot earlier, allegedly after a road rage incident between the two of them. I looked outside when I heard the commotion and saw said guy get out of his truck and start walking in RRM's direction, so I went outside to intervene. When he saw me coming up from behind RRM he power walked back to his truck. As he was leaving he nearly hit a car, swerved off the road and clipped a palm tree across the street. RRM thinks the reason the guy hauled ass so fast is because he knew RRM wasn't playing games when he got close enough to see the fierceness in his eyes.



RRM has told the story to 4 different people now and each time he sounds more heroic and badass.



I had a lonely sadbrains preggo girl sitting at my workbench for most of the day while I worked on her laptop and juggled customers. RRM caught the scent of desperation and swooped in to introduce himself and tell stories about a horse he probably didn't actually own.



An older couple, who frequently ask me to fix simple problems with their clients' websites despite that being what they both allegedly have been doing for a living for over a decade, want to pay me fairly nicely to teach their grandson how to fix computers. The caveat is that they want me to teach the things I learned in the order in which I learned them in. They believe I've discovered the secret recipe of practical knowledge taken from self-teachings in various fields of computer nerdery, as opposed to learning from "all the bullshit classes and books that cost us and damn fortune," which "haven't taught the boy a lick. He couldn't tell a microchip apart from his pecker."

Well kid, get ready for some hard life lessons. First I'm going to roleplay as a condescending hyperdork computerman (little acting skill required) as I take about 10 lawns worth of your money and tell you the thing you want me to do can't be done and you're stupid for trying. That's lesson 1, see you next week.

[Sandman]

I just spent over an hour on a board repair from a computer in my "some day" pile. Fixed the no power problem but couldn't figure out why it had no video and no power to keyboard or mouse even though I was getting voltage from the ports. Gave up, desoldered the new board components, salvaged a few parts and threw the rest in the scrap pile and trash. Then I plugged in another computer. Same problem - no video, no lights on the keyboard or mouse... Turns out at some point I had accidentally hit the button on my KVM switch.



valve boss had a meltdown in his office while on the phone with customer service for a cruise line or something, and he broke some shit and left. he is one of those angry caveman types that literally never gets anywhere calling customer service because he either gets "disconnected" for being an asshole or he gives up trying to dial numbers for the options menus and throws his phone. lots of basic aspects of everyday life, such as human interaction and pushing buttons, are taken for granted by us modern humans but often very difficult to grasp for those who were abducted from caves during the paleolithic era and brought to modern day by time traveling trickster demons.



A lady at a plumbing supply business in Texas asked me to send her a quote for a float control, so I did. Then she emailed me back

Lady: I need to know if y'all only sell the middle part-I don't need the whole unit. Let me know!
me: Lady, we can provide the CF1-C1 pilot valve assembly only (no bracket, counterweight, ball or rod) for $398.
Lady: Can you send that in a formal quote with your company letterhead?
Me: see attached
Lady: This quote doesn't say which part this is? Is it the middle part?
Me: The pilot valve assembly is item 12 on the attached drawing.
Lady: What am I looking at? Can you tell me if it's the middle part or not?
Me: I'm not sure which part of the CF1-C1 would be considered the "middle part." If you need something other than the pilot valve assembly, please let me know which items on the drawing you need.
Lady: I need the flow.
Me: Which part number are you referring to?
Lady: It doesn't have a number. It's at the bottom of the 2nd page. The middle part is the flow.





What she originally asked for is the little "CF1-C1" doohicky in the top right. It's a float control, which uses a float ball and a little valve to tell the main valve to open or close depending on the level of the water the float ball is sitting on. It works kind of like a toilet float valve except for much bigger toilets (not pictured: your mom).

What she actually wants is the main valve, which she is calling "the flow" because of the word "flow" on the drawing indicating which direction the water is moving through the valve.



fuck whoever at apple decided a keyboard needs to be mounted to the frame with 62 got damned screws. just gonna use tape.



There has been a trend lately of weird dorks coming in here with some old office mini pc they're trying to use as a gaming machine. I try telling them that an SSD and some ram would make it plenty fast for their granny to bring the ruckus to pinterest with her ambrosia fruit salad recipes, but the core 2 platform and whatever low profile video card that'll run on a 280w psu won't be very good for playing anime upskirtmata or whatever the kids are into now. But they keep giving me money.



Two days ago
Boss: Send a PO to [local pipe supply place] for that [bigass pipe and pipe accessories] and have them ship it to [local customer]
Me: You don't want to just go pick it up? It would save some money on freight.
Boss: Nah, I've got too much shit to do.

Today
Boss: Why is [local pipe supply place] charging us so goddamned much for shipping?!
Me: It's LTL freight with a lift gate
Boss: What the fuck why didn't you have them ship it UPS
Me: The pipe was over the weight limit
Boss: Why didn't you tell me?! I could have just gone there and picked it up in the truck myself!



I don't remember if I posted about the senile old couple that called the cops on me a while back for looking scary or something, but they just came back to pick up their computer that they did not bring here. They both know that they took it to office depot but the husband insisted that this is where it's at now and the wife didn't feel like arguing I guess.

they didn't call the cops on me this time (that I know of)



the new clerk lady(?) at the convenient store near my house is my new favorite person now that Scruffy's dead and my drunk neighbor doesn't loudly rant outside as much as he used to.

Yesterday I came within earshot as she was mid-conversation with a customer and I heard her say "lord just let the drive to work be long enough for me to sober up, but nooope. haha! aw well, I'm here at least, ain't I?"

today, again mid-conversation: "oh he's so gross. he's so gross! I told 'im we can't hang out no more unless he takes a bath or somethin', man!" "oh yeah, he stink?" "oooh, I think he was farting out of his dick. I needed a couple shots of tequila before and two more after to use as mouthwash. gross, honey, I mean gross."



car boss needed to ask Siri how to spell family

that's all the juicy gossip I have for today ttyl



new valve service guy (I haven't thought of a good pseudonym for him yet) left a valve rebuild half-done, apparently valve still in pieces, because the engineer on site kept asking him questions he didn't know how to answer and valve boss wouldn't answer his phone. now he's in the back shuffling around boxes and parts "just to have something to do."



RRM once again has John Goodman's "fuck you" speech from The Gambler on loop, which has been the case for like an hour. I don't know if he's actively watching it or if he just fell asleep at the desk.



Got a call from a crazy lady asking how to re-wire a camera with a broken screen so she could watch the people that are spying on her and her husband through screws that have cameras in them in her HP printer. Heard the husband in the background pleading with her to hang up. Sorry about crazy wife, bud. I hope she's hot at least.



A lot of people like to ask me why their thing isn't working, and then shoot down every possible reason I give them. Like they want to believe their problem is totally unique and there can only be a supernatural explanation for it because they're special and pedestrian things like lightning, heat and old age don't apply to them.

I've been getting a lot of mileage out of the solar flare/cosmic ray explanation this summer and so far not a single person has questioned it.



I'm sitting in my office hearing murmuring from the garage as car boss is talking to someone else who wandered in from the back. And then suddenly

RRM: Hey y'all might wanna get the fuck out the way!
*loud thunk noise followed by a louder thunk noise and a vibration from something heavy hitting the floor*
RRM: Woo boy that was lucky!
CB: Well, fuck that, let's go to lunch



The other person turned out to be RRM's dad, who's basically the 70 yr old version of RRM, complete with long unsolicited stories about fights, crazy exes and threesomes. Except his long story had lots of unrelated parts with no segues in between so it was hard to keep track.

He always forgets that we've met before (he blames his memory loss on drinking 6 20z bottles of diet coke every day for a bunch of years) but he feels the need to share a bunch of private details about his life anyway.



I'm glad RRM offered to check my generators because the one that has only been used when my dad borrowed it a few years ago was, in RRM's words, "fucked like a whore at Christmas time." Luckily he keeps a bunch of generator parts on hand. Now I need to investigate what's up with Christmas whores. Like is that a popular gift, or is it because people feel extra lonely during holidays, or do they have a sale or what



well, it took 4 1/2 years, but I finally did it. I sold the one usb dial-up modem I had in stock.



a gym bro is real mad at me because the warranty for the SSD I installed in his laptop doesn't cover the blu-ray drive. but he hasn't shown up to beat me up yet.



gym bro update: he called me today whining that the only reason he wanted that laptop working was to use the blu-ray player so it's super unfair that I wouldn't fix it after charging him all that money. So, to get him to go away and also because I'm out of SSDs and need one, I offered to pull my SSD out of it, give him a full refund, and he'd just be back where he started and can take it somewhere else or buy a new one or whatever. Gym bro was satisfied with that.

He showed up wearing a sleeveless punisher skull shirt and was mostly a chill bro except for saying he would never recommend me because I really let him down. I just said okay.

About an hour later he called again sounding very pissed off because his laptop won't boot. I reminded him that it's right back to how it was when he originally brought it to me (except with no hard drive instead of a dead hard drive). "But why bro? Why would you do that?" "Uhhh that's what the refund was for, bro." "Damn I thought the shit would still work though." "Nah, bro."

So he's coming back tomorrow to give me the money back to put the SSD back in.



Gym bro told me he deserves a discount. I told gym bro I'd rather just not deal with him any more and to run along. Gym bro knocked my business cards off the counter and left.

[Sandman]

I have about another year's worth of posts after that, but the entertainment value really went down after the death of Scruffy so I won't bother boring you with them.

I ended up taking a job offer and continuing to work for Valve Boss on the side, but without me physically there he couldn't stay in business for long. It didn't help that his drinking got worse and his wife stole all his money for the 4th or 5th time.

RRM finally grew a spine and left shortly after I did. The car dealership closed immediately because its whole business model depended on having a good mechanic who practically works for free. Another biz came in and actually turned a profit, but when valve boss's biz finally died he tried to double the car lot rent and they said lol cya.

Valve Boss also tried to rent out the shop again, except he was putting ads in the paper like he was hiring a technician. Then they'd show up and realize it's actually just an office and storefront that they're renting, so they need money for that and also to run the business themselves. So that was a revolving door for a while. Some hardcore christian dude lasted about 4 months before he had a crying meltdown and closed up.

RRM has a job making actual money now but he's just a broken record otherwise. Same problems, same trailer park drama, over and over. But I still talk to him because occasionally I need help with car stuff and he works real cheap.

[el-camino-ss]

I enjoyed these very much as I can relate lololol