I dedicate this post Haremite Nikki who demanded I write this. I hope she is enjoying her journey up above!
This little gem comes from the frozen days of the house search.
Okay, so there was this dude who was helping us with our house search around the end of last year. We will call him Bennie.
For those who may be unfamiliar with the whole story, I will give the short version.
- Wife injures leg.
- I move to her mom's place to take care of her.
- Around Thanksgiving she mentions that she is not renewing her lease, which ends at the end of the year.
- So we scramble to look for housing with about a month to get things done.
- I was unemployed and The Wife worked for an auto parts supplier, right around the time of the bailouts...
- Did I mention that the car had no heat?
Okay, now you are caught up.
So this dude Bennie was one of the people who was contacted about a property or two. He was really eager to help us find a place since commissions around Christmas are a good thing. Not that we had very much spirit since there was a distinct lack of funding and a great deal of stress. We had very specific needs since the locale we were looking in would keep the kids in the school there were currently enrolled.
On the day in question, Bennie had a place or two to show. We made a meet time around 6:30. On this particular day, Mother Nature and Old Man Winter had a confab and decided that it would be great fun to make for a White Christmas. The bastards! They succeeded. By the time it had stopped snowing, about 6 p.m., there were at least a good 6-8 inches accumulated on the ground. That sucked big ass big time!
So on we went to find the place. We were freeing our asses off because of the no heat. And we were slip sliding in a cross country skier's paradise. We found the street in question. We turned. We got stuck! We rocked it back and forth and got unstuck. We proceeded down the street and well, got stuck again. This time I had to get out and push to get unstuck. Lemme tell you standing in a foot of snow in ankle high boots is no fun! So we managed to get it moving again. Wifey, who was driving now, almost stopped! So I humped it through the show and managed to jump in the, still, slowly moving car. We find the place. Did I mention that there was a foot and a half of snow and really nowhere to park on the street? We quickly have a discussion about street versus guessing where the driveway was. We picked the driveway. So a hot bit of acceleration and a little sideways driving and boom! Yep, stuck halfway in the driveway in two feet of snow! Yep. I know, you saw that coming... We decide to take our chances with the street parking. So we somehow manage to get the car halfway out of the driveway and into the middle of the street. By this time the city road crew was coming through. And we were blocking them. From what do you ask? Plowing the street of course. Where were these mothafuckas at 15 minutes earlier BEFORE I was sweating in 18 degree cold. Anyhow they managed to shovel and push us out of our stuckness. Partly because we were in their way. So we got unstuck from the two and a half feet of snow and down the blizzard dumped street. Of course going the way they came would have worked better since that had been plowed already, but they were blocking and shyt!
That ordeal over we managed to get back to the service drive. We went around the block and found that they had been there already. It was like night and day. We felt like we were driving in a trench with a clear bottom. So nice it was. So we made our way back to the house for the meet up with Bennie. We chose the freshly plowed street parking this time. Now by this time Bennie was a bit behind schedule. But he finally made it. He pulls up in this big ass 4wd Magnum V8 pickup truck and flies up into the driveway. He jumps out into the three feet of snow and grabs his shovel. Now he got no gloves, no hat and we are looking at him like he was some kinda alien at this point. He does a halfway decent job of moving enough snow so that Wifey wouldn't have to put her bad foot in the snow too much. She was wearing a boot and sock so there was nothing to keep her foot dry should she step too deep.
Now I must stop to paint the picture in a little more detail. We were in a community north of 8 Mile. Detroiters understand what that means. To all others, let's just say that folk there tend to not have an afrocentric point of view if you get my meaning. But again, north of 8 Mile. And it is near 7 p.m. around Christmas. So it is dark den a muhfugga out already. And there is a group of people near a house. One obviously black. One looking quite Mediterranean/Middle Eastern. The third looking either White, Black, Hispanic or Middle Eastern depending on who you ask and what the hair game looks like at the time. Needless to say, we might have looked a little suspicious in that jewish and black neighborhood.
So he finally gets enough snow moved for us to get to the porch. We are freezing our asses off because we had to drive there with no heat, and waited a extra half hour for him while getting unstuck and standing in the snow. He starts punching the combo to the lock box on the door. He finds no success. He tries it again. No luck. Third time, no charm. So he says "That's strange. Maybe she gave me the wrong combination at the office." We agree that it is a plausible explanation for the troubles and joke about it. He calls the office. The lady on the phone gives him the same combination that he has been trying. He tries it again since she tells him that there is no other combination listed for that property. I bet you know what happened right?
So now there is a mystery afoot! He decides to check the side door for another lock box. Me and Wifey are standing on the porch waiting. He comes back to his truck and is on the phone by now. He is speaking very animatedly in Not English. We look at each other. My Spock eye brow goes up. He goes back to the side door saying that he is gonna see what's up. A minute later we hear hard bangs on the door. Repeatedly. So hard in fact that the picture window starts pulsating like a 15 inch subwoofer. We start looking at each other a little more meaningfully. Then start looking out for the polices!
Finally Bennie sounds successful in having achieved entry into the place. We look at the door waiting for him to open it. Right then Wifey says "I ain't going in there if he opens that door!" I look at her like we didn't just go through a frozen ordeal to get a look at the inside of the place. I guess she reads my expression which I am positive says "Oh we going our frozen asses in there!" She then says "I'm 'bout black as night, people aren't always sure what you are AND "
some" folk might think the guy we are with is the cousin of an al-Qaeda". I pause... "And do I need to point out that we are in Oak Park?" At that I go straight up Jar-Jar Binks on her ass and say "Um... Yousea point is well said!" We have a giggle over that and a moment later Bennie comes around the corner a touch pissed. He tells us that there is furniture all up in the joint and it looks like somebody left a meal on the stove. Recently...
Wifey and I share a look of stark horror at that announcement. We start moving toward the car. Judging by the amount of snow that was on the sidewalk and driveway, either the person was likely on their way home from work, or they were in the house and was hiding when he started kicking the door in. Needless to say, we got the fuck up outta there with the quickness! You wouldn't have known that lady was walking with an open toed foot through four feet of snow.
But we did find out why he was so pissed. Apparently either the house owner listed it with someone else or rented it out himself and Bennie's company out. Which was a breach or their contract. And he definitely wasn't gonna earn no commission on that joint.
That was some crazy shit right there! We still laugh about that. I do wonder what happened with that house and such. And I wonder what he is up to. Sucked for him that somebody else managed to find us the place we are in now.
But we will always remember Bennie Kick (your door in)!
(You will have to excuse the self-taken-bathroom-photo-style that is now standard on the internet. But it is one of the few she sent me... And she seemed to always be wearing a slightly devilish grin like in this photo, so I had to share!)
