Quick Money Adventures

Have you ever sold clothing or toys on social media? Who hasn’t right? It is the Uncle Henry’s of 2023. Everyone is trying to make a quick buck. This post may make you rethink your money adventures. It is a long and winding road, so buckle up and take your dramamine.

It begins a few months ago with my husband telling me he was heading to Lowe’s and then two hours later coming back with a new Subaru. These sorts of things happen in marriage you guys. Even if you have been married for ten plus years, and even if there is no Lowes receipt. The man I married changes his car every few months. I don’t understand this, but I have resolved myself to the fact. I personally, would never change my vehicle. I ask really smart questions when he cars shops for me, like what color is it? What is the depth of the cup holder? You know things like that.

Anyway, the real issue with coming back with the new car is that he didn’t sell the old car. Nawww, I don’t like that so much. So then we were sitting around on a Sunday morning, with three car payments. You should never have more car payments, than you do jobs. My grandmother taught me that. Unbeknownst to me, my sweet husband decides to make a quick buck, while he is waiting to sell his old vehicle and he puts Little Silver, as I like to call it ,on Turo. I know lot’s of people do this, especially in bigger cities. I think people are flipping and flopping cars all over New York and getting their new garages paid for, but I did not like the sound of this. For starters, when I sell my son’s old trampoline, I drive to a neutral location, pull my sunglasses down and say you want this or what and that is the exchange people. That is the exchange. But I need you to know Joe’s heart was in the right place in trying to make some fast money and appease his unappeasable wife.

Fast forward to a few days later and we are at a basketball tournament. My children usually only enter tournaments in which they know they are going to get pounded on. The kind of tournaments where the kids lay down and the other team breaks their glasses and pours expired gatorade over their bloody elbows. That kind of tournament. This was no real difference. We were four games in. Four big losses. I knew that Joe had rented out little silver, but I chose not to think too much about it, because my therapist tells me this is how I avoid largest issues. I just choose not to deal.

Anyway, we were handed our next big loss and Joe comes up to me and whispers,

“we have a situation.”

“We” I ask. I am crossing my elbows, doing the side hip. Giving him the one eyebrow lift.

“My car was just reported as stolen.”

“Oh, that is a situation I say.”

Now in this moment. I am not very reactive. I am semi pissed, but also a small part of me is satisfied that this Turo company turned out to be a sham. It even sounds like a sham. Like a donut that never fully rises and when you bite into it, you spit it out in the sink because it isn’t worth the calories. Joe tells me he needs to go to the police station to see about the car. At the same time, I begin to get a migraine. One of those head aches that is partnered with a lot of nausea and the only relief is to lay horizontal in the deep deep darkness. I give Joe the peace sign and dim all the lights. An hour and a half goes by and I look at the clock. No Joe, but it seemed appropriate for me to organize dinner, while Joe was helping the world fight crime. One extra car rental at a time. I tell the kids Momma is headed to the store and head out to the driveway. I notice as I’m getting into my car, there is a car going very slowly past my driveway. This doesn’t alarm me. People don’t go that fast on my road, this is one of the reasons I like my road.

As I turn on the car, the other vehicle has not moved from the bottom of the driveway. I am still not alarmed by this. No red flags going off yet. I start down my driveway and shine the lights into the window of the mysterious car at the bottom of the driveway. I roll down the window and a gentlemen stumbles out.

“I’m going to get your car back.” He tells me.

At this point, I realize the connection between little silver, Joe’s escapade and this dude at the bottom of the driveway and my heart rate immediately accelerates.

They say people go into freeze, fight or flight and a new term I have heard about which is fawn. I think fawn may be where you appease the threat in order to avoid any kind of danger. I think I did a combo or freezing and fawning and fleeing. Maybe all of them at the same time.

The gentlemen was clearly on some kind of drugs, alcohol or a mix and match of sorts. He was slurring his words, he was unsteady on his feet. I tried at first to insist I knew nothing about a car. This seemed a good strategy, because I thought if I feigned ignorance he would leave the residence.

He didn’t.

He insisted the female who had rented the car, she was pissed. His buddy took her car. His buddy needed the car. Just needed to visit his kid and so he took the car, but he knew where our house was, and so that’s how he showed back up. He wanted to give me some money. He would get the car back in no time.

I insisted I didn’t want anything to do with the car. That was my husband’s gig. He would have to deal with him. The guy insisted he had driven 45 minutes, and needed to solve this now. He tells me he tried to work it out with the female, but her boyfriend pulled a gun on him. Gulp.

Heart rate up. Heart rate way the f up. I look around to the right of me at my sweet neighbor, the house across from me, my other sweeties. No one is outside. No one is looking.

My biggest goal was to get him away from the driveway. I look up and a car is pulling up behind this guy. Bingo.

“Oh my goodness, I tell him. You are blocking the street. Give me your cell and I will have my husband call you immediately, but you can’t block the street.”

He looks confused. A little bemused by my friendly nature and gives me a number. I plug it into my phone and take a left out of my driveway. I text my daughter lock all the doors and watch as he pulls away. I call Joe, who tells me Little Silver is no longer in our state but in New York, abandoned on the side of the road, drug infused. Perfect.

Just Perfect.

For privacy purposes, one person had rented our vehicle. Let’s call her Sabrina. Someone else took it on a joy ride to New York for the sole purpose of moving or selling drugs and all the while we were losing game after game at a basketball tournament.

I am shaking. I am crying. My daughter calls me and says she was looking out the window when I told her to lock the doors and someone got out of the car and ran through the boundary between my house and my neighbors’ house. What???!!! I yell. Now it is like an episode of Cops, or Bounty Hunter or Little BIg Crimes for Dummies. Joe calls the police. They show up and I explain the situation. I am still shaking. My son looks up in a self assured way and says “Don’t worry Mom, Jimmy is coming.”

His friend at school has a Dad who is a cop. I don’t have the heart to tell him, not all emergency calls go to Jimmy. I just let him think that. The cops do show up, four or five of them. They check all around the yard. The neighbors yard. Just to be certain. I have the nicest neighbors I tell him. He nods. This happens a lot he says. People get taken advantage of. Drug trafficking is really bad.

He normalizes it.

I am not normal or good at normalizing, so I get more worked up. I don’t do drugs, I tell the officer. I am the biggest loser on this road, possibly the town. He is nice. He has known me since high school. I have a phone number I tell him. Let’s call him he says. His partner comes inside. His partner has a serious stance, very alert eyes. I like that. It relaxes me.

The guy picks up on the first ring. He thinks the cop is Joe. Doesn’t even ask any questions. Says he will return the car. Of course he will. The car will be in better shape than when Sabrina had it. He is just trying to get through school you know? School? I think? I thought someone was picking up a kid. My head is spinning. From the crime and the migraine and fawning and freezing.

My daughter describes the guy to the police. She describes the second person. She is very attentive to detail. Height, weight, limp. I am in awe of her. My little crime junkie. I sit down on a chair. The cop assures me he can check back by. He thinks these people are stupid, but not dangerous. I nod silently. He asks me if I want tips for next time, for when we want to rent out a vehicle.

I tell him he should give tips on staying married. We won’t be renting out so much as an f’ing law mower. He nods. I think he feels bad for Joe already.

Joe gets home and says he has a contact through Turo. The rental company. I ask for the number. I speak to a nice man named Austen. Austen is probably sitting in his own gaming chair. It could be his second week of work. I’m sure he has nice cheek bones, and student loans. Readers. I aint give an F. I lay into Austen. I eviscerate him. The poor guy. I ask him if this is a service Turo gives all their new customers? To have their vehicles stolen and drug launderers pulling up in the driveway. What a nice welcoming gift. I take no prisoners.

He asks if Joe wants to go to New York to pick up the vehicle. At this point, I am like a shark about to attack. I explain to him Turo will be paying for the tow company, for the gas mileage, for the cleaning service , for the monthly payment. I tell him, the car will be cleaned and scanned over by a god damn toothbrush. He inhales sharply. I welcome him to use our phone call in their training videos next month.

Then I ask him why his company advertises their service as no contact and seamless when it is the exact god damn opposite? That for a whopping fifty dollars I get to feel unsafe in my own home, because Turo doesn’t have enough safe guards to make sure drug rings aren’t using the service for their own business purposes.

Poor Austen.

He has lost all sense of purpose. I used to want to be a district attorney when I was 11. It was right after my dream of owning my bakery, and doing all of the scanning at the grocery store. I don’t pull out that kind of go for the artery predatory behavior much, but when I do, it’s lethal.

By the end of the phone call we are both weary. Exhausted.

So as you can see reader, I am always a proponent of scrapping, of having a side hustle, of chasing your dreams. But in this case, I would advise you to not rent out your vehicle. I would say the fifty dollars is not worth it. Especially while you are losing a basketball tournament, and especially if your wife disagrees with you doing it in the first place.

I have to P.S. this by adding, my husband has literally never apologized harder, or added more security to our home than on this latest venture. I don’t even know how to access my own home after this escapade. We have cameras, we have alarms, in each nook and cranny in our house. It was a lesson, a life lesson. But one I don’t wish to relive.