One bourbon, one scotch, and one mav

So the theft stories have been requested, and I’m going to comply because I just got my new wireless router and I’m enjoying playing with a router that might not die in fifteen minutes. Plus, I’m bored. Here we go uh-gain folks.

First off, let’s set the record straight. I owned a computer shop for 8 years. I made some shady deals, I sold some things at outrageous markup, I sold more than a few OS-less computers (not that I can’t legally do that, but it really pisses off Bill & crew.) But I never stole from the State Tax Commisson, and I never stole from a customer. I’ve known many shops around here that did, but I never ever did. Ever.

I have been formally accused of theft twice in my life. Reading the note above, had better be able to fucking deduce whether I was guilty or not, because if you do then you’d better go to another fucking website.

The first time I was ever accused of theft was by the positively looniest fucking customer I’ve ever had. I can’t remember any stories about her except for this one, which is too bad because she’s a batshit crazy story warehouse.

The first time I met her, she brought in a Tandy 1000 RLX or RSX or some piece of shit like that. It was a 386SX (sans coprocessor module,) that’s important and it will come in later. It was one of those slim-line pizzabox designs that had a moderate amount of success in the early 90’s. She wanted me to upgrade the fucking thing, at which point my brain automatically said “Okay, I’ll fill the fucker up with concrete and you can use it as a self-defense weapon.” Thankfully I rarely ever said the things my brain came up with.

I looked at it, very briefly, and gave her the lowdown. We can upgrade the hard drive, kinda, but it’ll be really hard and I’ll have to do lots of really weird shit because it’s a fucking Tandy 1000. Or I can upgrade the RAM, but I’ll have to do lots of fucked-up shit because it’s a goddamn Tandy 1000 shitpile. Any way, she took the POS home and I figured I’d never hear from her again. Yeah, I wish.

Later that afternoon I get a call from her, and she’s really fucking irate. She says that either myself or my buddy Aaron (who was working with me at the time) STOLE THE FUCKING COPROCESSOR out of her piece of shit computer. She never had a fucking coprocessor to begin with… Besides, what in the fucking holy jesus hell fudgepacking monkey-fucking Christmas are we going to do with a fucking 387? It’s not like I can plug that wonderful $15 component into my brain and make it so I can do integral calculus, because believe me fucko, if I could have done that I would have bought one in about .015 nanoseconds and had the fuckiner installed even faster. Anyway, this whole thing was only fun because it was so completely surreal and because I got to swear a lot and you read it all. Ha.

The second time I was accused of theft is a lot longer and wordier, aren’t you glad you read the first story? I’ll write it in a more narrative style.

It was a dark and stormy night. No it fucking wasn’t you crackjob, it was a hot muggy summer and I was in Southern Fucking Idaho.

“Goddamnit.” That’s what I usually said when I woke up in Southern Fucking Idaho. On top of just the simple fact that I was arising once again in Southern Fucking Idaho, I was also developing one asskicker of a summer cold. Anyway, I’d forgotten why I’d gotten up. I quickly remembered, though, because my goddamn cellular phone was ringing. Sure enough, it was a customer, and on top of that it they made it clear that right the hell now was the only time they were going to be available for days. I told the man on the phone that I was very sick, and that I would come out but that it was entirely possible that I would make him ill. He said that he was still getting over “that same goddamn evil shit” and so I probably wouldn’t make him sick. so I hopped in my rig and drove out to his house.

So I checked out his computer. It was a simple case, an e-machine that had a revision 1 power supply. NLX power supplies mount the fan on the inside edge of the power supply, and exhaust through a series of small holes drilled in the back. It’s a fine idea in theory, but in practice houses that are really dusty or dirty can clog up the holes, then the PS doesn’t exhaust and everything goes to shit. They had done precisely that, by smoking a lot around their computer. You heard me. They smoked it to death. Anyway, I diagnosed the problem, and told him that I could have a new PS here by the end of the week. He said that was fine, and we both started bullshitting. He was waiting for his kids to come home before he could leave, and I as usual had nothing else to do so we were just shooting the shit about whatever came to mind. Then the phone rang. At this point in my life, I should have recorded a sound of shit hitting the fan and made it my ringtone, but I hadn’t got smart enough to figure that out yet.

I answered the phone, and it was Brenda. I’m not disguising her name at all here, I am just not giving you her last name. I’ve known many Brendas over the years, and to the best of my recollection they’re all bitches. But this Brenda is the biggest bitch that ever bitched a bitch, and she was about to fuck with my life.

—==== ENTERING RUNLEVEL flashback ====—-
About six months previous, the following events took place:
1. I agreed to look at Brenda’s computer and both (a) attempt to make it work, and barring that (b) estimate its value for insurance purposes. It had been ‘drowned’, that is, a water line had burst or some fucking thing like that and flooded the room it was in, shorting the shit out of the computer. I looked at it, found that the only thing working was the monitor (and it not well) but that it was a total POS and worth maybe $350 if they pushed it. I bumped that a little because she was nice and insurance companies were evil. But she wasn’t happy with my estimate, because she claimed she had a lot more hardware than what I said she had. I said that I was sorry, that I could only estimate the value of what I had seen. I gave her a letter detailing its worth, and we parted amicably. Or so I thought.

2. A few months later I get a call from her claims adjustor. He asks me if I looked at Brenda’s computer, I say yes I did. He asks me if I appraised it at (some number way higher than what I appraised it at.) I said fuck no, where’d you get that estimate. He said that’s interesting, that’s what she told him. I said didn’t she give him my letter, he says no, let me fax you what she gave me. He faxes me. I get this letter back with specifications that exceed the specs on her rig by about 2X, and I write up a nice letter telling him exactly what I looked at and what it was worth. I said specifically that I didn’t know about the computer she was describing, that I had not seen that machine and that the machine I had seen was worth X dollars. Why? Because while at some point in my life I may want to commit fraud against my insurance company, I’m sure as fuck not bringing other innocent folk into my dilemma, and that’s what she’d done to me.

I heard nothing from Brenda after that.
—-==== ENTERING RUNLEVEL real_life (goddamnit) ====—-

Brenda was on the phone, and boy was she fucking pissed. Apparently her insurance company only gave her the money for the machine I looked at (Read: HER REAL FUCKING COMPUTER, NOT THE IMAGINARY ONE SHE DREAMED UP) and she was pretty fucking pissed that I didn’t just go along with her attempt to defaud her insurance company.

I told her that I was not going to be an accessory to insurance fraud (can you BE an accessory to insurance fraud) and that if she wanted to commit fraud she should have kept me out of it.

She then responded with threats. “Well, you know, maybe a few pieces of hardware went missing after you looked at it. Maybe the sound card and video card were both missing, and I’m going to report you for theft.”

“You do that, go right ahead. I’ve got nothing to hide.” Stupid goddamn walking petri dish trailer trash brother-fucker wants to fuck with Mav? Oh nooooo, homey don’t play dat. I work for lawyers, they like me very much. Besides, any cop with two braincells to bang together (thus disqualifying almost everyone at TFPD) knows that no self-respecting computer geek would ever be caught within 100 yards of a piece of shit video and/or sound card from 5 years ago. Not to mention the fact that THEY WERE BOTH WATER-DAMAGED, AND FUCKING DEAD.

Let me clear this up: She tried to get my arrested for STEALING TWO COMPUTER PARTS THAT WERE NEARLY WORTHLESS WHEN THEY WERE LIVING, AND WORTH ONLY SLIGHTLY LESS WHEN DEAD.

Any rate, I dropped by my lawyer’s office that afternoon and conveniently discussed the psycho bitch. They said that if anything came of it, to let them know, and they’d crawl up her asshole and check for friction burns. Unfortunately they never got the chance, because the dumb bitch never had the guts to report me, or the cops told her to go fuck herself.

And thus endeth my stories of woe, and second class threats of thievery. Hope you enjoyed reading them as much as I did writing them, but I doubt it.