There is this big old lady in my neighbourhood that I used to wave at every time I drove by, just because I felt she was lonely.
One day she phoned me to ask if I could give her a quote on fixing up her 900 square foot deck. Being on welfare, she was entitled to a $12,000 federal grant for home repairs. She had a $6000 quote for her roof and a $9000 quote for her rotten deck. I don’t normally do this kind of work, but I can and determined that I could help her out for $6000 with mostly donating my time and no profit.
As soon as I ripped off the rotten plywood, her two big trucker sons, who I didn’t know existed got involved, criticising my work and telling me how to do it. I immediately loaded up the new plywood, but her and the government agent begged me to return. After another disagreement with her sons threatening to throw me off the deck I quit again, but this time I had more money in it and had to complete it to get the first draw of $3000. I waited 6 weeks for the ballance, only to find out that she submitted bogus bills from some outfit in another city. The government agent told me it wasn’t his problem.
The only thing I can think of is pretty minor compared to everyone else’s stories. One time I was next in line in a supermarket checkout lane with a half dozen items when a kid holding a loaf of bread comes up to me and asks if he can go ahead, since that’s the only item he has. I let him, then he shouts “Hey, Mom! Over here!” and a woman with a cart absolutely packed full waddles over. I’m like “WTF? You said you only had one thing?!” He just says “I have only one, but she has more.” and angry Mom is in my face about me trying to cut ahead of her son. Now I never let anyone cut in line ever, for any reason.
