Several years ago, when I worked at Cargill, one of the guys that worked In my department took pleasure in telling one of his favorite stories. His brother’s application for continued residency was denied. His brother had bought a decent vehicle from one of the pay-as-you-go car lots. After his brother returned to Mexico, my coworker continued to go in and make the payments. After making the payments for several months, he went in to pay the car off. The car lot suddenly decided that because the car wasn’t in his name, he could no longer have it. It’s not that they were wrong legally. You get the idea. My coworker was angry, but didn’t argue. He jumped in the car and drove it home.

That’s where he got creative.

A couple of days later, a truck pulled in with a very simple towing bracket to repossess the car. The tow truck driver was expecting an argument. He pulled up quickly and attached his tow truck to the front of the car. My coworker went outside and was very polite to the driver and said he understood that he was just doing his job. He told the driver that something had gone wrong with the car and that a mechanic had been working on it. Further, he told him he should check it to be sure it was safe to tow. The driver still acted like he didn’t trust him. He didn’t get out of his tow truck to do once-over on the vehicle.

The tow truck drove away quickly.

While my coworker did not get to witness the ensuing mess, he did get an angry call from the dealer who owned the car lot. At some point while towing the car, the tow truck driver realized that both of the rear wheels of the car had come off during transport. He did not however realize this until he was most of the way back to the car lot. Dragging the car directly on the pavement evidently did not increase the car’s value.

The dealer was belligerent and angry. My coworker told the dealer what he had told the tow truck driver. And he reminded him that he was not the owner and was not liable either way. The dealer threatened to call the police. To which my coworker replied, “Make sure and include the part where your tow truck driver failed to check the car for safe transport before he drove it.”

He listened as the dealer cursed at him and used racist language.

A couple of months later, my coworker went to the lot with a friend. His friend had thousands of dollars of cash to buy a car. They negotiated the sale and right before closing, my coworker said, “We’re not actually going to buy the car. We just wanted to make sure you understood how much business you lost for what you did to me and my brother. Make sure and tell (owner’s name here) that I said hello.”

They both got another racist cursing. But they left laughing.