The Wondering Mind

This story caught my eye today.

CARROLL COUNTY, Ga. — This is a story that may leave you shaking your head.

A Sandy Springs man got a phone call Monday that his family home in Carroll County was gone. Torn down. Demolished.

The thing is, it was the wrong house.

The demolition company said it had paperwork.

“I said, ‘Paperwork for what?’ and he said, ‘For the house, to demolish the house.’ I said, ‘I’m the owner of the house, I haven’t given anybody any authority to demolish this house,’” said Byrd.

So what was this “paperwork” that the moron company was so proud of?

Channel 2 Action News reporter Jovita Moore asked Byrd if the demolition company had an address.

“I said, ‘What address did you have?’ and he said, ‘They sent me some GPS coordinates.’ I said, ‘Don’t you have an address?’ (and) he said, ‘Yes, my GPS coordinates led me right to this address here and this house was described,’” said Byrd.

Byrd said he suspects the intended target was actually across the road.

There are clearly multiple levels of stupidity on the part of this demolition company here. Before you do something as destructive as total demolition of a building, the sensible thing to do would be to get more than “GPS coordinates” which can be misinterpreted by your retard workers.

(And what the hell does “GPS corrdinates” mean anyway? Are we talking longitude and latitude? What? Most people find directions to an address using a GPS unit, so I’m not sure what these clowns really mean here.)

Before you do something dangerous like demolishing a house, wouldn’t it be sensible to check that it is uninhabited at the time? That there is no one or nothing inside which they should not harm or destroy? They do that sort of thing when they demolish buildings with explosives and the like, and I don’t see why it would be different with any other demolition. And of course, if these cretins had performed, or tried to perform, even a cursory check, they would have realised that the house was still occupied.

Sad for the family involved and, one hopes, it will be very, very expensive for the companies involved. Preferably to the point they go out of business. For good.

The reason this story stuck with me was that I had somewhat of a similar experience a few years ago, although thankfully, my story did not end badly.

One day I’m in a Chick-fil-A having lunch. You can see out through the windows, obviously, and I could see my car in the lot from where I was eating. So I’m enjoying my lunch when I see a tow-truck pull up and a guy get out by my car. This guy promptly goes up to my car and appears to be trying the door handles.

Now, this was in the middle of the day, on a bright sunny day, in a large parking lot of a strip mall, with lots of people around. Which was why I was sat there for at least a minute or so, observing all this with incredulity. I’m thinking, “WTF? What is this idiot up to? He can’t be brazenly trying to break into my car in open daylight, in an open parking lot?”

It seemed so strange and incredible, I thought this simpleton was just confused and would move on soon enough. But no. He keeps fiddling about with my door handles. I still had to finish my lunch, but I had had enough. I went out to the parking lot and confronted him.

Me: “Hey! What the f@ck do you think you’re doing? Get the f@ck away from there!”

Idiot: “Is this your car?”

Me: “No, I’m just yelling at you because it’s someone else’s car! Of course it’s my car, you idiot! What the fu@ck do you think you’re doing?”

Idiot: “I got a call from someone who said they’d locked themselves out of their Acura in this parking lot. They wanted me to come out and unlock the car.”

Me: “And they gave you my license plate number?”

Idiot: “No. They just said it was an Acura.”

Me (now more incredulous than angry): “Well, is it another CL in this colour?”

Idiot: “Well, no. I don’t know what model it is. Or what colour. I just saw this Acura and thought this one was it.”

Me (now angry again and incredulous): “Are you telling me you were trying to break into my car without having any freakin’ idea if this one was the right one? You have no freakin’ idea which Acura it is, you f@cking idiot! What the f@ck were you going to do? Try every Acura in the lot? Or did you think there would just be one in the entire lot?”

Idiot (still f@cking clueless): “Sorry about that. I guess I’d better try to call back and get more info.”

Me: “You THINK?!”

At this point, the moron went back to his truck and sat in his cab, apparently making calls. After checking my car, I went back inside and finished my lunch.

I have to say that by the time I went back to my lunch, I was so pissed I was ready to call the cops. Before you think I was over-reacting, I was going to call if this cretin went onto another Acura. You never know; the guy might have been lying and it’s a ruse for theft. Or even if he was telling the truth, I had no confidence that he wouldn’t be randomly trying to break open other people’s cars. Fortunately, he left the parking lot altogether after a couple of minutes in his truck.

At the risk of sounding like a terrible snob, there are just some people who are too stupid to be anything more than a janitor. If not because they’re too dumb to be anything else, but for the protection of the rest of us.