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Tuesday, February 23, 2016

Boathead


Boathead

Anita @ Just Curious   http://btdas.blogspot.com/2016/02/taken-for-granted.html  sparked this memory; I’m not sure if I should thank her or not.

OK, the title…This post is about a “friend” I once had who was a salesman in the shipping industry.  As you will see, he was not my most favorite person.  If you are talking to anyone in the Navy or the shipping industry and refer to their ships as a boat you will be corrected almost instantaneously.

“So, how big is your boat?”

“SHIP!”*

Like that.

I used to refer to this particular individual as a “Boathead.”

Anyway.

Boathead was the husband of a vague friend of my first wife.  He came to find out that I drove to the train station every morning and he had a similar commute.  Because of our wives vague friendship, I somehow became Boathead’s personal chauffeur.

The wives seemed to think this was a good idea.  Boathead needed a ride, I was going to the station everyday anyway, and we could keep each other company.

My wife did not get that commuting time is time to read the paper, nap, or just get all your cranky out so you can be a human being at work.

Boathead was a pain in the ass.  He complained about my beat-up unreliable VW bug on the way to the train, he would not shut up on the train, and he called every evening to coordinate our train schedule for his ride home, a schedule often not to my liking.

“I’m running a little late tonight, you don’t mind do you?”

Fucking Boathead!

Boathead was a salesman.  His day was basically taking customers to lunch and kissing ass for their business.  On the way home I had to listen to what he had for lunch, all paid for on his “Business card” like he was such a big shot.  I so wanted to just look him in the eye and say,

“How very impressive, but I’d like to read the paper, so FUCK YOU and your hotshot expense account…Oh and by the way does that expense account credit card work at the gas station on the way home, or for the monthly parking at the train station?”

Believe it or not, I was too nice.  I said “um hum” about eighty-seven times a day.

Interestingly enough, when I had something to talk about, he would change the subject to his own big shot life faster then he would say “Ship” if I said boat.

Fucking Boathead.

Somewhere along the line after about two years of this delightful commuting arrangement we parted ways.  I don’t remember what it was, a change of schedule or change of jobs I don’t remember.  I do remember not missing his company.

I did bump into him one day at a local convenience store.  We went through the usual small talk.  Well he talked, I um hummed a lot.  I mentioned that I had moved, (I had upgraded to a new neighborhood, one more hoity toity than his ride grubbing, chump ass, hotshot expense account, crappy house.)

Always the big shot he responded,

“Really!  I wish I had known, I’m looking to buy a rental house as an investment.  I could have bought your house.”

Sure, what was he going to do, buy a second house with his expense account?  Maybe first he should buy a hoopty to get to the train station.

Anyway I just um hummed him one last time and said good bye to his hot shot ass.

Fucking Boathead.

* You get the same kind of instant response (plus a short rhyme) if you refer to a rifle as a gun when talking to anyone who was ever in the Army.

16 comments:

  1. You put up with two years of that?
    I once put up with three months of getting a ride to work from a colleague who suggested it, and of course I said thanks that will save me bus money. After the three months, his wife decided I should chip in for petrol money (her idea was to collect the $10 bus money I was now saving),since he was going out of his way to pick me up each morning. I hadn't known that, so told him I'd go back to catching the bus, the blessedly quiet bus. He was a talker too, while I would nap all the way in on the bus.

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  2. You two commuted in a VW Bug? A cramped VW Bug? I know hindsight is always 20/20, but you could have launched into a daily coughing spell, explaining your tuberculosis was really raging, much more so than normal, or your leprosy was going to be the death of you any day. Tada! Nice quiet ride. :)

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  3. I used to share a ride to work with my best friend. Supported her through her divorce, and everything. Then she sowed all her missing wild oats for a couple of years. My husband called her a whore. Then they got married.

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  4. Friend or no friend, I can't stand talkative people in my car. Perhaps that's why no one ever asked for a ride!

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  5. Why in the world would you agree to do this? Really, why. I would have dumped this poor excuse of a human being the first week. No wonder your divorced from this woman. In part because of Boathead.

    Have a fabulous day. ☺

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  6. I think it is for this very reason that freeways here at so crowded and rarely anyone is in the carpool lanes (requiring 2 or more in the vehicle) during rush hour traffic. Would drive me crazy indeed!

    betty

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  7. Yes, you should thank me. What was once a repressed memory, is now an opportunity to experience a bit of catharsis. :) And judging by the number of times I see your favorite expletive, I'd say it's working.

    Thanks for the shoutout and continuing this conversation. I'm still laughing... at your story and those of your readers, too! I hope you'll hear/see more.

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  8. I've never owned a rifle or a ship so thanks for the lingo lesson. As for Boathead, I think we've all experienced people like him, although I don't think I'd have been as kind as you.

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  9. Yeah, I'd have cut that routine quicker than you did. Someone once said "Just Say No."

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  10. Ironically, the quote of the day over on the Brighton Pensioner's blog is from Kin Hubbard:
    "The only way to entertain some folks is to listen to them."

    (I have no idea who Kin Hubbard is)

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  11. * You get the same kind of instant response (plus a short rhyme) if you refer to a rifle as a gun when talking to anyone who was ever in the Army.

    I know this one!! "This is my rifle, this is my gun, this one I shoot, with this one I have fun!!"

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  12. That must be where you used up almost your entire stock of patience for life, i know i would have.

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  13. When confronted with a request for a favor like this, I always say, "I would if I could, but I don't want to."

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  14. I spent a year riding an hour each way to the city with a co-worker. He liked the money, I liked the convenience. We sometimes talked, sometimes not. Every last Friday of the month, he made a detour on the way home to browse for gadgets in a computer store, subsidized by my gas money. I did not complain.

    That said, I would not willingly accept a passenger if I was the one driving.

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  15. I thin I'd rather pass a kidney stone than to commute one day with some

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  16. With someone like that. Is what I meant to type.

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