What Happened To The Trans-Am?
What Happened To The Trans-Am?
Original Story in The Rules They Don't Follow
My advice to you is to go back and read the whole article entitled “The Rules They Don’t Follow”, only if you haven’t read it before. If you already have, then you will know what this story is about. If you can’t remember, you can refresh your memory by going to the article and skipping down to the section entitled, “First Problem Car”. This will bring you up-to-date on what I’ll be talking about here.
After the asphalt was re-done, the car sat over in the vacant land in the parking lot east of the pool and clubhouse. It had been placed there by the maintenance guy and the owner of the car. At that time, there were just weeds where the rest of the condos were to be built. But the 2008 recession cut the funding for them. So it stayed vacant over there until a few years ago.
Every time I would walk the garbage up to the containers, I would see the car. I used to walk every day past it while on my walks. I would look at the car and think “why hasn’t this been removed yet?”. Remember, no abandoned cars were allowed.
One day, I saw this man who has a garage within eyesight with the car. It looked like he bought the car. He was known to fix people’s cars. I used to see him with cars at his garage working on them. The maintenance guy would stop his golf cart there all the time and talk to the guy.
If I didn’t tell you already, from my condo, I can see out to the parking lot. I see everything.
Remember, I talked about the rules before. Well, one of the rules says you cannot be running an auto business out of your garage. And the maintenance guy is one of the enforcers of these rules. But he let him continue doing it. Makes no sense.
So, this guy started working on the Trans-Am. A few weeks later, some people came to look at the car. They didn’t buy it. The car still sat in the parking lot across from this guy’s garage. Then, a guy showed up that looked interested. The owner and the prospective buyer were looking at the car while talking. They went for a test drive around the complex. The speed limit is 10 mph. You can’t really test it without going out on the road. Both of them went to the owner’s condo to do the deal.
Money exchanged hands and the buyer took off in the car. I watched as he left the complex. He turned left from our stop light. The car did not accelerate once he turned onto the roadway. He barely made it into the lane. I was standing in the home office and looking out the window when he passed by. I could tell the car wasn’t moving very well. I actually waved when the car went by because I was happy to see the car leave. I had been looking at it for so long outside the front windows.
I was still at the window when I saw the car come back down the roadway. I thought, “Oh No!”. The buyer pulled the car back into the parking lot near the owner’s garage. A few minutes later, the owner came back out of his condo and returned the guy’s money. The guy got into his original car and left.
It looked like he found out after purchasing it, that it wasn’t as great as he thought. When he put his foot to that gas pedal and it didn’t go, he probably thought what a big mistake I made.
The car sat for weeks after that. It looked like he couldn’t find a buyer. About a month later, I saw a rollback wrecker sitting out near the car. The driver and the owner of the car talked and exchanged paperwork. The driver hooked the car up and slid it up onto the rollback portion. I think he decided to sell it for scrap. I watched as the driver left the complex. He followed the same route the other driver had.
I waved as the car left for good. Good riddance!
Until next time, happy reading.
-Matt