Here is a crazy story, but I’ve changed the names to protect the guilty. For people who know the real names, please don’t mention them in the comments. Not that I ever get any comments, but you never know.We ordered a leather chair from a place I’ll call “the company”. We love it, but about 2 weeks after we received it I happened to be sitting on the floor, playing with Loren, and I leaned over to get something from under the chair and noticed that the back right leg was actually broken, with a triangular piece missing and a screw visible. The break was in a place only noticeable if you were on the floor, looking under the chair. So we called the company and they sent a person over to look at it (I was hoping he’d show up with a replacement leg).
So he shows up, comes in very quickly, looks at the leg, says “Yes, you need a replacement” and leaves the apartment. Then he knocks and comes back inside and says, “I was supposed to take a picture.” So he does. Then he asks, “Can you see the street from here?” I tell him no, and he mumbles something about parking and leaves. I assume it is one of those deals where he is worried about the parking meter, but oh no, it was much worse than that.
60 seconds later he is knocking on the door again. He asks if he can look out the window to see the street, so I let him (although at this point I’m wondering what the hell is going on). He says he cannot see the front of the building (I live here, I already knew that, and I already told you that!), and mumbles something about “not wanting to get his brother in trouble because he’s using his pass.” At this point I figure his brother is with the city, or is a fireman, or is a policeman and this idiot is using his official parking pass when he visits apartments to take pictures of furniture.
He then asks me to call the doorman “to see if the police are still at my car.” At this point I should have declined and sent him on his way but I’m a helpful guy so I call down and ask and the doorman says, “Yes, there are police all around.” I tell the guy, and he asks if there is a place he can watch the front of the building without being seen, so he can wait until they leave. Now, I've watched Cops on Fox enough that I know if you make the police chase you, or wait for you, that they just get pissed off--they don't just leave. I tell him no place in the building (including the roof deck) looks over the front of the building, other than the lobby (which is not too big and has huge glass windows so you can see out and everyone can see in). He acts really concerned, but leaves.
The doorman calls up 5 minutes later asking if the car is mine. I tell him no, it belongs to a guy who was here for a service call, and he tells me it is about to be ticketed and the police are getting angry. I tell him the guy has left my apartment and I assume he is on his way down there.
Later I go down and talk to the doorman. Apparently the guy did something on the road that attracted the attention of the State Highway Patrol, so that when he parked directly in front of our building in a “No-Parking (Except on Sunday)” zone with his brother’s police parking pass and ran into our building they swarmed around his car, waiting for him to come back. He hid in our laundry room for a while (apartments in NYC typically have cameras everywhere so the doorman and super were tracking his movements), later tried to offer the doorman $15 to go out and move the car, and finally went out and got into a yelling match with the police about how they “can’t look inside the car without a warrant!” The doorman thought he was going to be arrested, but after 20 minutes they just wrote him a bunch of tickets and let him go. I apologized to our doorman and told him the guy was just here to look at a piece of furniture and I didn't mean to involve him in something, and he told me it was the most exciting part of his boring day.
We didn’t call the company to report this guy’s behavior, which I assume would result in him being fired. Should we have?
NYC
The copyright holder of the photo above, Nate Enyedi, allows anyone to use it for any purpose, provided that the copyright holder is properly attributed. Redistribution, derivative work, commercial use, and all other use is permitted
5 comments:
Capt Sawyer: Not that I ever get any comments, but you never know
I left a comment just yesterday, but it seems to have been deleted.
And I have to admit, that's a crazy story. You should have sent him to the roof then called the doorman and have him tell the police where he was. Did the police confiscate the pass?
Not sure why the comment got deleted - it wasn't me. I only delete comments that indicate where Cheryl and I work or that indicate specifically where we live.
I went down after they had all left, so I'm not sure what happened with the pass. The doorman thinks the guy may have actually had his brothers cop car, and not just the pass.
Capt Sawyer: The doorman thinks the guy may have actually had his brothers cop car, and not just the pass.
No way. And they just let him leave with it? That's insane. Guess that's why the title of the post is "Only in New York" though.
Curt left out the epilogue: a week or two later, we got a package in the mail from "the company" that contained a replacement leg (originally over the phone they had told me the legs were not replaceable, and that was why they had to send a service person). There was a handwritten note with the leg that said "please call to set up service appointment". Luckily, Curt was able to replace the leg with no problem -- I don't think we could have handled the excitement of another service appointment.
Thank you for the proper photo credit.
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