So Karla has been wanting a wood chipper for about 10 years now and so when i stumbled across one on craiglist I thought it'd be the perfect birthday present for my loving wife.
I should've known better when I read the ad and the guy misspelled 'chepper' and said the 'cab' was just rebuilt, but I called him anyway. He sounded nice on the phone and he gave me the lowdown on the wood chipper, said it ran good and everything. Then tonight when I got off work I called Josh again and we arranged a time to come and look at it.
He was hauling cars to the local junk yard in his tow truck when we showed up, so we got to his trailer house before he did. I walked up to the front door and knocked and a bunch of diaper clad kids and a heavy set young lady answered the door with a barky little dog in her arms. I said, 'is josh home?' and she said 'NOPE! Josh don't live here anymore!' I'm like, I just talked to josh on the phone, and she said 'I just talked to him too and HE DON't LIVE HERE ANY MORE!!! But you can stick around and wait for him, he'll probly stop by to get his shit!' then slammed the door and left me standing there on the steps with a barky little dog barking and nipping at me.
At this point Karla said we should just go, but I said just hold on and see if josh shows up. After about 5 minutes I called josh and he said he was just entering the trailer park and he'd be there in about 2 minutes. So old joshy rolls in and takes me around back of the trailer to one of those tin shacks that you see behind trialers that people keep lawn mowers and junk in. There amongst a bunch of broken down lawn mowers and beat up snowmobiles was a pretty nice looking wood chipper. He was asking $100 for it and so I asked him to start it. Sure enough, second pull she fires off. Only problem it wouldn't stay running for long. He struggled and tinkered for about ten minutes and I said, 'So do you still want a hundie for it?' to which he said, 'I'll take sixty' I'm like, 'Dude, I'll give you forty for it and that's probably way more than I should give you'.
So he pulled and cranked on it for five more minutes and threw his hands up and said 'fine, forty dollars and it's yours'. He looked totally defeated.
We loaded it up in the Toyota and I shook his hand and headed down the road with Karla's new chipper. Josh actually seemed like some guy that was down on his luck and really having a bad day and to make matters worse his chipper wouldn't run, we felt like we should've bought him supper or some beer or something but instead left him standing in front of his forty year old avacado green Rollohome getting ready to go in and face his wife's wrath. So Happy Birthday Karla, you finally got your 'chepper' and to the rest of you, if I suddenly show up missing, look in the mulch!
-RL
============================================================================================================== Disclaimer: This story is 100% true, based on actual events. ============================================================================================================== Here's the craigslist ad:
wood chepper - $100 (camp douglas)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 2011-06-07, 11:02PM CDT Reply to: sale-*****************@craigslist.org [Errors when replying to ads?] --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
i have a wood chepper i would like to sale. it has 8 hp motor on it . u can pull it behind a four wheeler or whot ever u what to pull it with it runs real good i just put a new cab kit in last summer just give me a call my name is josh #608 *** **** thanks for looking
• Location: camp douglas •it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests
Greg