Mitch Cronin Posted January 16, 2005 Share Posted January 16, 2005 Summer 1983, I was working as a landscaper for four bucks an hour. I Started that spring doing grunt work. ...hauling wheelbarrow loads of limestone screenings for interlocking patios and driveways, bricks and stone and dirt, digging holes, planting trees and shrubs, digging trenches for wiring... Eventually, as I gained the trust of the sons of the Dutch owner of the business, I'd get sent on my own to do various tasks. One of those times, they sent me to a place they'd made a backyard jungle-jym-thing for the client's kids, but they'd left the wrong ladder with it. I was to pick up the ladder and bring it back to the yard. I was excited about being able to drive my own car while at work. (if you can believe that!) I'd just installed, and spent an eon tuning, dual carburetors on the thing, and I was pleased with the result. I had a gas driving that car! But something was missing when I headed out in my VW Beetle to go retrieve that wooden ladder. I don't remember clearly the thought process when I decided what I'd do with the ladder in my little car, but it didn't turn out to be as easy as I might have thought.... if I'd thought at all? The yard was only about 3 miles away, down some secondary highways on the north side of Toronto.. not remote, but not that well travelled either. Having completely failed to plan anything, in my haste to blast away from the watching eyes of the bosses, I found myself wondering just what to do with that 10 foot ladder? For some reason, I decided it would do just fine stuck through both side windows and only protruding by about 3 feet on either side of the car... the trouble was, that meant I had to stick my head up through the rungs, as only the door had windows that would roll down, and that left the ladder running through the front... So it was that I headed back to the yard from this customers house, in my Beetle, with a ladder on my shoulders that was sticking out both sides of the bug like little wings. Not more than a mile down the road, I came across a cop going the other way. Fortune seemed to be with me though, as at the same instant that I saw him, I was in a perfect place to signal, brake, and turn as though I'd intended to all along, onto a side road filled with houses.... The bugger followed me. I pulled in the first driveway on the right and stopped... He stopped too, dang it! I sat there feeling somewhat silly in my ladder shirt, and watched in my mirror as he climbed out of his car and walked toward me... "Do you live here?" He asked first... "No" sez I... "What are you doing here?" he wants to know.... "I just pulled in here hoping you'd think I lived here and leave me alone" I said, knowing damn well lying to a cop doesn't pay... He controls his laughter just enough to get out the instruction to remove the ladder and back out of the driveway to park on the road. He must have appreciated the laugh, since he didn't write me any tickets... he just watched as I strapped the ladder to the passenger side of the car with a long extension cord I hadn't thought of using earlier. Someone else I told that story to thought it was funny, so I thought I'd offer you all a laugh too. Cheers, Mitch Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GDR Posted January 16, 2005 Share Posted January 16, 2005 Great story Mitch. Got my day off to a great start. I can just picture you with your head through the ladder talking to that cop. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seeker Posted January 16, 2005 Share Posted January 16, 2005 Great story Mitch. Reminds me of Saturday morning at the lumber yard in the days before minivans. You'd see all the weekend carpenters loading lumber into their cars so that one end would stick out the front passenger window and the other end would rest on the top of the left rear seatback. I wonder if any of them ever thought about what would happen if they snagged something with the end sticking out? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kip Powick Posted January 16, 2005 Share Posted January 16, 2005 You still see the odd guy with a sheet of 4 x 8 plywood, or even a mattress, being tied on his roof with string. Often wondered what happened when he hit 100km/hr Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seeker Posted January 16, 2005 Share Posted January 16, 2005 Saw a guy just last week pulled over on the side of the highway just a kilometer or so from the on ramp. He had tied a mattress to the top of the car (one rope around the middle). He was stopped but the mattress was still bent in half over backwards. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seeker Posted January 16, 2005 Share Posted January 16, 2005 I think this picture is a fake but funny anyway... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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