PennSilverTaco's "Perfect 5-Lug Regular Cab" Build, Aspergers, and General BS MegaThread!

Little bit warmer than the past few days

 

Another sign that winter is over...

 

The front of my vehicles gets covered in bugs too.

 

@ABA180
@ColoradoTJ

I do not know why in the hell I'm suddenly remembering this now, but it was the summer of 2012, and the 4th of July fell on a Wednesday that year; My mom's side of the family all pitched in to rent a house in Cape May, New Jersey for the week. The house was not right on the beach, but it directly across from Congress Hall (a famous and historic hotel) and the beach was visible from the front porch; It was hot as hell that week, with record-setting temperatures and a heat wave that lasted pretty much the entire week. The house may have been over a hundred years old, but it did have central air, so that provided relief when we weren't on the beach; Right down the street from the house was a plethora of shops, including at least three ice cream shops. There was Ben & Jerry's, at least two independent shops, and possibly a Dairy Queen. The whole family almost exclusively went to Ben & Jerry's; My aunt and I both tried some ice cream from one of the independent places, and neither one of us liked it very much.

It did not help in the slightest at lease one of these ice cream places was right on the way to the superior Ben & Jerry's (again, it may have been a DQ but regardless of what it was, it was better than the other places), and that these shops would have employees handing out coupons and very aggressively trying to direct people to their establishments. One time, I happened to going to the place I actually liked, when this guy from the independent place practically shoved a coupon into my hand. I continued walking towards Ben & Jerry's, with absolutely no intention of utilizing the coupon, and the employee had the nerve to say something like "Uh, sir, we're over here..."

I told the guy I wasn't hungry at the moment, and continued walking; I don't know if he saw me get in line for the better ice cream place (I say again; It could have been Dairy Queen or Ben & Jerry's, but I don't remember), but I hope he did!

I had never seen vendors that aggressive outside of New York City, but hey, after tasting the one shop's ice cream I can see why they were that aggressive!

 

And let's not forget the one time in 2010 when my mom and I took a bus to NYC to meet my cousin and her husband; My cousin's husband was in NYC on business, and my cousin and their baby had come along. I forget where the hell we were, but I was trailing the rest of the group while looking at the photos I'd taken (I'd brought my very first SLR, a Nikon D3000 that I'd gotten for Christmas in 2009, on that trip). Out of nowhere, this street vendor shows up and starts talking to me; I don't remember what the hell he was selling, but my attempts to get rid of him were futile. I told him I was in a hurry, and he was like "I'll walk with you." At this point, my cousin overheard what was going on and intervened; She is a take-no-bullshit kind of woman, and she told him off. My cousin hadn't seen the situation unfold and assumed I just approached the guy and started talking; She started to scold me about "talking to strangers on the street in the city" and I told her that the guy had just come out of nowhere; I may be a bit more friendly than I should be with strangers sometimes, but I know there's a time and a place for everything and I keep to myself when I'm a big city. My mom and cousin told me that I basically looked like a tourist, and that's what attracted the street vendor; I took the hint and kept an eye on my surroundings instead of my camera, and didn't have any problems for the rest of the trip.

 

If there's one thing I cannot stand, it's street vendors; It took until at least 2015 before I finally wised up and learned how to assert myself with them...

In the summer of 2014, we drove down to Myrtle Beach to visit my aunt and uncle; We stopped at a Wawa in Maryland, and I saw a truck I wanted to take a picture of. While heading back to our SUV to get my camera, a very attractive woman approached me at random and asked me what deodorant I was wearing; I fell for this, and the next thing I knew she was spraying deodorant samples on wrist. I humored her, but when she tried to sell me I politely said that I didn't have any money on me and walked away; I then told a Wawa staffer that I'd encountered an unauthorized deodorant peddler in the parking lot.

Once we got to Myrtle Beach, I encountered a CD peddler in a restaurant parking lot while taking pictures of a custom Dodge Ram. His hat was orange with two black stripes on it (just like the truck I was taking pictures of), and I initially thought he was confronting me about taking pictures of his trucks; Turns out he just wanted to sell me a gospel CD...

I was not interested and politely declined; I told my uncle about the encounter, and he told me that the CD peddlers were "everywhere" in Myrtle Beach...

 

And yes, I've still got pictures of the truck! I can't remember if the guy showed up while I was taking pictures, or if I took these after he left...


August 19th, 2014:

Myrtle Beach, South Carolina

 

It's got a Kentucky license plate, so I'm guessing the owner was on vacation too; I ran the license plate through Carfax and it came back to a 2010 Dodge Ram 1500, which I'm assuming is the same truck...

 

In May or June of 2015, I was at a car show in downtown Easton, taking pictures of a classic car; Some sketchy-looking dude (White guy, long hair, messy clothes; Looked like he was a drug user of some sort) wearing a backpack came up to me at random and attempted to sell me deodorant; He started to take off the backpack, which I'm assuming was full of merchandise, and I told him I was not interested. He said "okay" and walked off.

 

And let's not forget my longstanding refusal to go to the Shell gas station on Easton Road in Doylestown due to the near-constant presence of FW1 vendors; In case you didn't know, FW1 is this multipurpose automotive cleaner. I left my truck momentarily to go do something inside the gas station (I forget whether the receipt didn't print or if I bought something), but when I came back out, this guy walks up to my truck and starts demonstrating the product! I have flipped out on people for touching my truck before, but I was too shocked to do anything at this point; This was the first time I'd encountered these guys, and I will admit that I was impressed enough to buy a couple cans because I had a stubborn stain in my seat that wouldn't come out. The stuff sorta worked, but nowhere near as well as Workhorse...

Thankfully, this was the only time the FW1 guys actually touched my truck, because I wasn't gonna be so nice the next time it happened; I started working at Puck in December 2014, and we moved about 7 miles south in March 2016. Either way, that Shell station was always pretty much on my way to work and I loved going there because Shell has good gas and that particular location had good prices; Once the damn FW1 peddlers started setting up shop there, I stopped going.

I remember one time I really needed gas, so I stopped there when the FW1 guys were present; The gas station was busy that day, and there were enough people getting gas that all of the guys were occupied. At the pump next to me, this poor woman was standing there helplessly as a guy gave her an unwanted demonstration of the product he was selling; He kept looking over at me, and I kept shooting him a look that said "don't even think about it." Luckily, I finished pumping gas before he got the chance to come over...

Another time, right before the Carlisle Truck Nationals and I believe in either 2017 or 2018, I was gassing up the truck before heading into work. An older, sketchy-looking guy came up to me trying to hawk this FW1 shit, and I should probably point out that my friend Joe and I had just fully detailed the truck in preparation for the show (so it was showroom clean); He started chatting me up about what detailing stuff I used, and I just looked at him and said "Dude, I'm not interested." He said "okay" and walked away, and that was the last time I ever encountered one of the dreaded FW1 guys...

One time in probably 2016 or 2017, I was in a loaner Corolla because my truck was getting inspected at the dealership, and I stopped at the Shell station near Thompson Toyota (still in Doylestown, but a different station) to put gas in the car so I wouldn't get charged the service fee; The damn FW1 guys had colonized this location as well (though I'm pretty sure this was before the encounter where I told off the older guy). Some kid in his early twenties ran over to me trying to demonstrate this shit on a car that wasn't even mine! I was like "Dude, this is a loaner car and I could care less how it looks, and I already bought some of that stuff."

I haven't seen any of these FW1 guys since at least 2018...

 

But if it wasn't the FW1 guys at the Shell station on Easton Road, it was the window washers!



The only reason these guy didn't get threatened with a foot up their ass for touching my truck is because they were wearing work shirts with the Shell logo on them, and on both occasions it was early in the morning so I wasn't awake enough to fully comprehend the situation; All I know is that I can tell you that unless I'm on a road trip and my windshield is covered in bugs, I never use the squeegees at the gas stations. I don't think these were dedicated Shell employees, but rather down-on-their-luck guys who knew the owner of the gas station and were given official-looking shirts so they didn't get pepper-sprayed by suspicious customers...
I am 99% sure this happened after we moved into the new house, so it would have been at least the summer of 2016; I seem to remember it being cold during the encounter with the first guy, so I'm thinking it was early 2017. It was not even 8am, and my boss at Puck had called me in early to help set up for something; I was barely awake, and this random dude in a Shell shirt appeared out of nowhere and started wiping my windows...

Okay. Whatever. Don't scratch my truck and don't expect a tip.

He started trying to chat with me, and I said "I just woke up, and I'm driving into work." He took the hint and continued wiping my windows in silence, then disappeared.

I forget how far apart these two encounters occurred, but the other guy almost got his teeth knocked out; Like the first guy, he showed up out of nowhere and started wiping my windows. I sat down in the driver's seat to wait for the gas to finish pumping, and this sketchy dude looked through my windshield and happened to notice the $800 Nikon SLR sitting on my front seat. People compliment me on my camera and related equipment all the time, but this guy rubbed me the wrong way. I immediately went on alert and kept a close eye on him until he finished wiping my windows; That was one of the last times I stopped at that Shell station, especially since their prices aren't particularly cheap anymore.

 

Way back in the 80's when I worked in the Pizza place all kinds of freakin scam artists would come in, you really had to pay attention.

 

And then there was the time in LA almost five years ago when I got taken by two separate aspiring rappers within five minutes, and in DC in July 2014 I'm pretty sure I got scammed out of a $20 by a fake Buddhist monk...

I avoid all street vendors like the plague nowadays!

 

@shakerhood

1982 Ford Mustang with a couple of "modern touches"; Seen at a car show today...


April 24th, 2021:

Richboro, Pennsylvania

 

One night this couple came into the Pizza place and the lady claimed the Husband or Boyfriend worked a Radio Shack and could sell us a video camera for a hundred bucks. They had a video camera for you to look at and a few of the video camera boxes all wrapped in cellophane, took me a minute to figure out the scam but those boxes just had some sort of weight inside to make it feel as if a camera were in it. Anyway I pulled out a hundred and told the lady and guy to pull the cellophane off one of the boxes and hand me the camera and they could take the money, they immediately declined and went quickly out of the door.

 

@shakerhood

 

Nice, they shoehorned a 32V 4.6 in there!

 

@shakerhood

 

Well they went all out as that is an 03 - 04 Mach1 interior, gonna assume that engine came from the same car too.