When a deal begins, you never know how it will end. There are times when the deal goes "text book" and it opens and closes as it should. No story, no issues, just paid delivered and over. This was not one of those deals. This will be remember for ever as...."The Suburban Sale".
The Suburban was Mike's. He placed it on Craigslist and, surprisingly quick, a guy from Missouri called on it. After contact back and forth, the guy had a local acquaintance come check out the truck. It was more of a check to see if everything was legit on our side of the deal. The guy sent a check to "hold" the truck and a copy of his 'non refundable' Amtrak tickets. He was coming for this truck.
It worked out to be a Saturday that he was going to arrive and Mike had some out of town plans that had already been in place. I, Doug, stepped up to help with the delivery of the truck. I was to pick up the guy AND his family at the Crystal Lake train station, take payment, and wish them a safe trip home. Worst case, it would be about 45 minutes.
Well, I got a call at about 5.45pm saying that they had missed the train to Crystal Lake and it was 2 hours before the next one. The Missouri folks were in a cab making the trip to Crystal Lake and if I could meet them closer to the city, that would really help and save them some cab fare. I had nothing going on so I agreed to meet them at the Oasis near the airport.
About an hour later, I met them at the Oasis. It was the guy, his wife, and 3 kids. Somehow, on my trip in, my phone got lost in the truck. I don't know how, it was me, 4 pieces of paper, and a phone....and now the phones gone. The first words we exchanged were "can you call my phone". I should have known that this was going to be memorable from that point. We loaded up and headed back to my place for the rest of the deal.
Once we got back, we started counting hundreds and found that it was running thin. He was $700 short. The look on his face was of shock and fear. He had pulled extra money for the trip and he figured there was about $900 missing. He called a neighbor to check the counter at his house, but nothing was there. It is now about 9 pm and we need $700 to close this deal. We were about to take a trip to an ATM to pull the max ($400) when Mike called. He was back in town and passing the shop. He could stop, have the guy call in his credit card number and be done. But he didn't have his key to the shop.
So it was BACK into the Suburban for the half hour trip to the shop. We joked about the missing money and the guy was half freaking out, half calm about the missing money. They were making a weekend out of it so they would not know if that money was in his truck at home till Tuesday. There was nothing they could do about it now. They were pretty laid back about the issue.
Finally, we made it to the shop, ran the card, and sealed the deal. After spending about 4 hours with these folks, I felt that I was part of the family. I had just jumped in the car with strangers and hung out with them for hours. On the ride back to my place, Mike and I talked about the whole ordeal and agreed that this was one that will be remember for a loooong time.
