So a couple of years ago my nephew Steve died. Among his possessions was a 1979 Vespa P200E scooter with a sidecar. My wife had been talking about getting a scooter for some time. She just thought they were cute and that she could ride it to work to save on gas. Now bear in mind that my wife already drives a fuel efficient little car and works about 1/3 of a mile from our home. She could walk to work if she wanted to and probably should, if it weren’t for carrying all the homework papers to grade. I mistakenly mentioned the Vespa scooter, and she thought that sounded awesome. Kill me.
I worked out a deal with my sister for the purchase of the scooter, but now faced a dilemma. My scooter repair skills were limited to putting air in the tires. I should probably mention at this point in this little narrative that I possess none of my father’s auto mechanical skills or knowledge, and have little or no interest in acquiring the same. I have owned a couple of motorcycles, and other than gasoline fill-ups and air pressure checking, I performed none of the maintenance on either of them, nor would I want to. There is no way, given my lack of mechanical capability, that I would ever wish upon anyone other than possibility Hillary Clinton, Justin Bieber, or Kim Kardashian that they set off on a two wheeled contrivance that I have performed maintenance on. Not to be undone I persuaded a local motorcycle dealership to make the scooter once again road worthy. They failed miserably. After a feverish internet search I discovered a local scooter repair shop and took the bike to them. So I like to say I repaired the scooter but rather than wielding a mean wrench, I wield a mean checkbook.
Initially I had some difficulty in kick-starting the beast. The kick-start lay between the body of the bike and the sidecar. Copious amounts of foul language was used. I tried starting it for so long I bruised my calf. So new battery and fresh fuel later – success! The Mrs took the scooter for a little spin. Hmm, not the awesome experience she was expecting. We’ll try again another day. The next excursion is undertaken at which time the person we will shall refer to as my “better-half” for reasons as of yet unclear to me, proclaims that she does not like the scooter and thinks she would be better off without one. Well isn’t that special!
Now what to do with an antique scooter? After more internet searches I discover sort of a Craigslist for scooters. I am able to place an ad for free, so this is the first thing in this little venture that has not cost me dearly. None of the calls turn out to amount to much, until one day. I got an email from a guy named Rob. He asks all the normal questions and requests photos, which is to be expected. I tell him the price and he disappears.
A couple of months pass and one day I get a new email from Rob. He inquires if the scooter is still available. I inform him that it is and remind him of the price. He agrees to my terms and says that a cashier’s check will be forthcoming. I wait – nothing. I wait – still nothing. I email him and he says he does not understand why I have not received it, but that he will look into it. Finally a few days later a FedEx arrives and contained inside is the check along with instructions. This is where it gets interesting.
The check is a cashier’s check drawn on the Bank of Guam. It looks a little funny, but appears to have all the normal stuff. The check is for $1300 more than I requested. The instructions included in the letter explained why the surplus funds. Before I go any further I should also mention that the man’s emails and the enclosed letter contain very oddly worded sentences. I concluded that they were drafted by either someone for whom English was not their first language; they were a Yankee, a Democrat, or possibly some combination of the three.
Now back to the mysterious instructions. I was instructed to as soon as possible take the check to my bank to cash, hold out $50 for a Western Union money transfer, and to send the remaining $1250 to a person whose name and address were contained in the letter. This aforementioned person was supposedly the shipping agent. I was to wire them the money along with instructions as to where they should pick-up the scooter.
Obviously this was a scam, and not even a very good one. I had to go to the bank anyway, so I took the check to the branch manager who I happen to know. She looked at it, scanned it, and forwarded the scan to their fraud department. Apparently checks have numerous counter measures built into them as well, because they called back in just a minute and informed us of what we already knew in that the check was a fake.
I emailed Rob and explained to him in great detail how I was absolutely certain that not only was this little ruse of his a complete scam, and that the check was a forgery, but that without a doubt his conception was achieved only after his mother having just completed her donkey show in the raunchiest strip joint in all of Tijuana proceeded to satisfy the sexual desires of a shipload of horny, scurvy-ridden sailors, all of which were infected by a varied combination of sexually transmitted diseases, some of which were unknown to be able to be carried by humans.
Rob emailed me back the next day. He was irritated with me. It was not my colorful comments about his mother’s sexual practices and total absence of morals that offended him. Nor did my suggestion that he have all his teeth removed, buy a pair of ass-less chaps, and offer his services at a Turkish men’s prison seem to disturb him. The thing that irritated him was that I had not cashed the check and forwarded the remaining monies. He assured me that the check was good, that I should just cash it, and stop holding up things.
God you have to love people don’t you?
