Goodbye, old friend
We had a great relationship. We spent time together every day. I was caring and attentive. But after 8 good years, I had to say goodbye... to my kegerator.
As most of you already know - I am a complete idiot. This proved to be true a couple weeks ago when I was defrosting my prized possession. Rule #1 when defrosting a fridge or freezer: Let the ice melt; don't try to chip that shit off with a screwdriver.
So as I stupidly chipped away at the ice, I poked a hole in the refrigerant coil. Freon shot out into my face and I raised my hands to block the icy gas. In a split second, I was covered in a frozen oily layer of coolant.
After I cleaned up the mess, Lulu and I started researching. How much would it cost to repair the thing? What could we sell it for? And we had to decide - did it really make sense to have a kegerator in the house when I'm the only one who drinks beer?
The decision: it would cost too much and it would take too much effort to get it fixed. I'll stick to cans of PBR or bottles of Kenzinger. So Lulu offered to help me sell it on Craigslist. I'd take the photos and she'd post the listing. We knew someone would be willing to buy it cheap and try to fix it.
What follows is an email exchange between my wife and a potential Craigslist buyer:
Thursday 7:30PM
From: Steve
I am interested in buying that Kegerator if it is still available. I am going to try and get ahold of someone I know and see how much it would be to fix that punctured coil. I am guessing that it does not work right now correct?? Alright, well let me know if you still have it or if you already sold it off.Thanks
Steve
Thursday 8PM
From: Lulu
Hi Steve,Yes, the kegerator is still available. And you are correct, it does not work right now. Although, from what I understand, the puncture is pretty easy to fix if you have the right tools and access to refrigerant. If you would like to set up a time to come see it, let me know.
Thanks!
Friday 2PM
From: Steve
Just keeping you up to date. I am waiting for a phone call back from my refrigerant buddy to ask him about the coil. I am pretty sure 90 percent sure that I will take it
Friday 2:30PM
From: Lulu
Thanks Steve. That sounds great! I can give you the exact address once we finalize something.
At this point, we started to get a lot of email responses to the ad. Several people were willing to buy it for the asking price without hesitation. So on Saturday, one of those buyers stopped by with cash in hand and bought it. It was a little hectic, because we were throwing a party for our daughter the next day, so we didn't get a chance to notify this dude Steve.
Sunday 1:30PM (two full days since we last heard from this guy)
From: Steve
This is steve about that kegarator. Not sure if my messages are going to you or not, but when can we have a time to meet up for this thing?
Sunday 8PM
From: Lulu
Hi Steve,Sorry I couldn't get back to you earlier, I haven't been online all day because we had our daughter's 1st birthday party. And I regret to inform you that the kegerator is no longer available. Thank you for your interest though.
Kind Regards
Sunday 10PM
From: Steve
That's really lame. You had a buyer and stifted that person. I thought I emailed you letting you know that I was 95 percent sure I was going to take it????? I can't believe it. I wish craigslist had a rating scale so I could rate you poorly for blowing someone off who was going to buy something from you. I don't understand why you would do that to someone.
Sunday 10:05PM
From: Steve
Its not like I was just asking info on it. I was going to buy it from you! You have no idea how upset and pissed I am right now about how rude you are.
What this guy doesn't realize is that my wife is no pushover. She takes this kind of thing very seriously. She believes in the free market, accepts the highest bidder, and she's professional and courteous in her emails... until now.
Monday 10AM
From: Lulu
Are you fucking kidding me? If I waited around for everyone who was "going to buy" something from me on Craigslist I wouldn't be able to sell shit. Maybe you've never bought anything off Craigslist before or maybe you're just young and naive, but nothing is guaranteed until money exchanges hands. It's first come, first serve. I'm sorry you're disappointed, but if you wanted the kegerator so badly, perhaps you should have gotten here a little quicker. You have no idea the amount of emails I received about this item, in addition to the amount of people who were "90% sure" they were going to buy it. Obviously, I found someone who was 100% sure, since I actually sold it.Now go cry in the corner if you need to, but stop harassing me because you didn't get what you wanted. You have no idea how spoiled and pathetic you sound
Now - I hate to give this guy the last word, but in all fairness, he did respond to my wife's last email. His response is here, with a few of my notes included in brackets.
Monday Noon
From: Steve
Hahaha what a hilarious message. I was 95 percent not 90! Duh!!! [Bullshit. And "duh"? Seriously?] I know I waited too long for my friend to get back to me with the coil question but I didn't think it was gonna go so fast since it was busted. And yes, I but [sic] plenty of things and also sold things on craigslist, but I at least give that person more than a 12 hour chance. [Failed math class, fella? It was 47 hours. So, you know - suck my balls, bitch.] If you had OHH SO MANY emails, ya could of waited a second and let me get back to you. Isn't that why I stayed in contact with you??? Young and naïve, far from it. [Yeah? Perhaps "mentally challenged" would be more appropriate.]Oh ps, go fuck yourself
And that's the end of the story. My wife chose not to respond. No need to continue the email battle. Instead, I've decided to sign this guy up for every piece of email spam I can find.
The Gators are fucking tough
Yeah I'm a Florida football fan, so I might be biased. Still, you have to admit Janoris Jenkins is a genuine badass. He's a cornerback for the Gators and he put on a serious show over the weekend in Gainesville.
It all started with a little fracas at a bar. I have no idea why anyone would mess with this dude. He's fucking tough. Check out how cops say it went down...
The cops showed up and saw some pushing and shoving. Jenkins says one of the dudes tried to grab his chain - maybe trying to steal it or even just trying to choke him with it. So he was pissed. He started swinging. Seriously, Jenkins was willing to take on five dudes at a bar. He knew he could take them.
The cops flipped out, yelling for him to stop. He didn't listen. Jenkins threw one more punch, so the cops tased him. Let me repeat that. The cops saw six guys in a fight and they decided to tase the one guy they thought could do some real damage. The fight was five against one and they knew the five dudes didn't stand a chance. So Jenkins got tased. (Insert your own "don't tase me bro" joke here.)
Game over, right? Nope.
Jenkins got up after being tased and fucking took off running. The cops had to chase him for a block and a half before they finally caught up with him and arrested him.
How would you like to go up against that guy on a football field? Willing to take on five dudes in a brawl, withstands being tased, and still manages to sprint a couple blocks to escape the cops. Yep. Genuine badass.
(Hat tip Joe The - http://thefinestkindofpork.blogspot.com/)
South Philly Drunk
I woke up Sunday night to the sounds of a drunken madman and a barking dog. It was 3am and I had to get up for work in a couple of hours. The dude was completely bombed, slurring as he yelled. "Yahhh! Hooatyah!" I still have no idea what he was saying. Just spontaneous random syllables.
I put a pillow over my head to block the noise and tried to go back to sleep. Of course that failed. Feathers and cotton are no match for a South Philly drunk.
My wife and I live in a rowhome on a small residential street. From our second story window, we can see the entire block. It's great for those Rear Window moments where the neighbors are fighting and you're just waiting for them to literally kill one another. But I digress...
I crawled out of bed, headed over to the window, and looked down toward the street trying to identify the stumbling buffoon. There he was, right below my bedroom window sitting on the bumper of my neighbor's car. He was talking to the dog. I mean - he was yelling. But he wasn't yelling at the dog. It's more like he was yelling to the dog. It looked like a conversation. No anger in his voice at all. He was just loud and rambling.
The guy was in his 40's or 50's. A black dude talking to a pitbull without a leash. Even while sitting on the car bumper, his was doing the drunken head bobbing thing that people do when they've had way too many drinks. It's like when you're driving late at night and you're exhausted. Your head starts to dip as your eyelids slowly close. But before your neck bends to the point where your chin meets your chest you are suddenly startled awake by some internal safety system. He looked like that - as if he might fall down onto the pavement at any second - constantly catching himself in time.
A quick aside... As I mentioned, I have no idea what the guy was saying. He was yelling as loud as he possibly could - a string of jibberish. But was I the only one who couldn't understand? I'm a white guy, and in my neighborhood I'm definitely in the minority. There are a lot of times that I can't understand what my sober neighbors are saying. Even after living in downtown Tampa and center city Philly, surrounded by people of various races and backgrounds, the black urban dialect still escapes me. It's fast while mumbling, foreign sounding, and riddled with slang terms I don't recognize. So while I claim this dude was screaming jibberish, it's certainly possible that my neighbors understood every word of it.
After watching for a few minutes, I got sick of the 3am show. Dude was boring. The same shit over and over. I crawled back into bed and tried to get some sleep.
What am I, an idiot? It was completely impossible. I had already tried blocking out the noise with a pillow and failed. I should mention that my beautiful wife slept through the whole thing. I am a very light sleeper.
I thought of a handful of solutions. I could open the window and tell the guy to shut the fuck up. I could tell him to go away. I could lie and tell him my wife is trying to sleep. What good would that do? Guy was crazy drunk. And he didn't speak my same language. He was clearly American and I assume he was speaking English - just not in a way I understood. For all I know he was yelling in slang "I'M GONNA SHOOT THE FIRST WHITE PERSON I SEE!" or "IF ANYONE TELLS ME TO SHUT UP, I'LL THROW A ROCK THROUGH THEIR WINDOW!" I really couldn't be sure.
Then there were the passive solutions. I could go downstairs and start my day early. Send a few work related emails at 3:30am. My bosses would be happy knowing I put in a couple extra hours. Or maybe I'd put on some music or watch TV. That might drown out the noise and lull me to sleep.
As all of these ideas raced through my head, I just laid there staring at the ceiling. The clock kept ticking and I was still awake and doing nothing.
Then about an hour after it began, I heard my next door neighbor yelling at the dude. She's a strong and persuasive black woman. A woman who works with her hands, drives a pickup truck, and has biceps as big as my thighs. I didn't completely understand what she was yelling either, but I got the message. "Go away. Get away from my house. We don't want you here."
I raced to the window to watch the aftermath. I imagined maybe he'd get belligerent and start breaking things. Maybe she'd have to rush outside and beat him down.
When I got to the window he was still sitting on the bumper. The yelling from both sides had stopped. Dude was silent, staring down at the pavement. His head was in his hands. His elbows rested on his knees. His knees spread wide. As if he was making sure he had enough room between his feet for... Yeah... Vomit.
Dude spewed what appeared to be shredded chicken in a brown sauce. Maybe chicken wings. Maybe chicken stew. Quart after quart. Maybe a gallon or more.
And yeah - you might have seen this coming.... The fucking dog started licking it up. Regurgitated chicken wings are pure ambrosia to a pitbull. Slurp slurp slurp. It was hard to tell from a distance, but I think the dog was smiling.
That was enough to ruin my night. The drama was over and I had these horrible images in my brain. I tried to go back to sleep now that the noise was gone. No luck. I was too freaked out. And I had to get up for work in an hour. Fucking South Philly drunk.
