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25 September 1999 |
| After Midnight - Again
I am so tired and sleepy, but I gotta write, and
I gotta show a picture. Hope my friends don't mind I posted this;
I didn't think to ask. This is the only pic I have of the Beetle
after the side decals were changed. The original decals were much
smaller and mimicked the Jones label. The little blotches are insects
of many colors and species.
Yesterday was a heinous day, and that has to do with the Bug, but it all came out ok. Last week the vehicle was in New York for a series of events, but it was accidentally driven over something, who knows what, that ripped a hole in the bottom of the engine. There are all kinds of protrusions in Manhattan streets that can do this kind of thing, and with traffic packed as tight as it often is, you can't always see the pavement you are going over, so things like these happen. The car just came out of the shop yesterday, and I had to meet someone at the garage at a specified time in a very hectically scheduled day. I got there only ten minutes late, considering I had to drop off the rental car at its Brooklyn homebase, get the rental car company to give me a ride back to my branch office there to wrap up a few things, and get a cab over to Manhattan. All of this in light of the fact that a wreck on a major highway had held up the people who were supposed to open up said branch office. Plus, the cab had dropped me off at the wrong location of the dealership, which turns out to be splotchily distributed over several tens of city blocks, so I had to complete the journey on foot. Once I met up with the person, the dealership had tremendous difficulties with some red tape involved in releasing the car. These caused a delay of something like an hour and a half or so. My whole schedule was starting to go to hell. I began to make calls. All this time, the heavy use of my celphone kept it depleted. I plugged that sucker into any handy wall socket every chance I got, with or without permission. I had a tasting scheduled in a ritzy mall in North Jersey that it was looking like I'd be late for. Finally the car was released, and I could drop off the person I'd met there on the way back to Brooklyn. Well, after I dropped him off, and that took awhile thanks to the traffic, the engine light came on. I swore. I got pissed. I parked the thing and went to a pay phone. The garage said that as long as the light was not red, it was safe to drive back to the dealership and so I did. In that traffic, in the early afternoon, it took over an hour and a half. I dunno how long it took them to correct the problem, which was simply a detached speedometer wire (idiot lights on the VW are not very informative, are they?), but I do know I got a nice nap in the process. I missed the tasting entirely, but I did get a fully functional Beetle, and lots of advertising. Everytime I take that thing to Manhattan, I swear we get at least forty thousand viewings. The little car attracts a lot of attention. People wave and shout and laugh and run up and ask questions. Every stop light is a mob scene. That really feels good. It's even better when I have samples to hand out. This thing is such a hit, two other of our manufacturers now want them. I have more proposals to write. --Spring
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