One morning I took a load of scrap metal to the recyclers. When I was just about to leave, a tow truck with a very cool, and rare, old Freightliner cabover on the hook pulled in. I had to have it! I asked the scrapper how much he wanted for it and he said he’d just paid the guy $700, so if I gave him $700 it was mine.
Sold!
We didn’t even have to unhook it from the wrecker. He followed me back to my parents place and backed it into the only available spot left, up against the hedge between my parents place and the nice old English woman who was transforming her property into an English country garden. One little problem. The hedge was dead right where I dropped the old, and very ugly, truck.
Picture this. The old girl had hired a bunch of machinery to transform her yard, complete with ponds for her geese, ducks and swans for her to watch. She added a bay window to her house, where she would observe her beautiful little oasis through her binoculars that were mounted on a tripod. And there, in a hole in the hedge, was a 1953 Freightliner that was missing its grille, with faded paint and rusty, staring back at her.
As I was digging through my new find, just seeing what all I got in the deal, I heard a very proper British accent behind me. “And what do you propose to do with this thing then?” Meet Anne Carmichael, a very wealthy old lady, dressed in her traditional garb, a white blouse, wrap around tartan skirt with a large safety pin, and rubber boots.
And she was not happy.
Not the actual truck, but almost as ugly…