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

@ABA180
@ColoradoTJ
@shakerhood
@Squatting Pigeon
@TnShooter
@wilcam47

I routinely get onto and off of the Pennsylvania Turnpike on Route 611 in Willow Grove; There are times when I really hate getting off the the Turnpike at this location. Twice in the last month or so, I've been cut off by women in late model black GMC SUVs; The first time it was a black woman of unknown age (late 20s-early 30s) in a GMC Terrain. What I believe happened is that she was on the Southbound off-ramp, realized she needed to be on the Northbound off-ramp, panicked, and cut me off. She did turn on her right blinker, but she took me by surprise and almost smacked into the left front corner of my truck with the right rear corner of her SUV. This prompted a long and angry honk of the horn on my part.

Critter has been on this off-ramp before, but the rest of you likely have not; There are three ways you can go. The left lane puts you on 611 South, heading towards Philly, the center lane will drop you in the parking lot of either Miller's Ale House or Home Depot, and the right lane puts you on 611 North, heading into Bucks County.

Yesterday evening, I was on my way home from a cruise night at Falls Township Park in Levittown, when I saw a black GMC Acadia roaring up on my left in the center lane with its right turn signal on; I had a flashback to the woman in the Terrain weeks earlier, and basically gave the driver of the Acadia a HARD NO. There was absolutely nobody behind me, and it wasn't like they were about to miss their turn, so I laid on the horn and gunned it. The Acadia got in behind me, like it should have done to begin with; At this point I had not seen the driver of the Acadia, and as they passed on my right, I saw that she was a very attractive and busty blonde in her early 20s. She gave me a snarky look and blew me a kiss...

I did not engage with her at all, at least not beyond blasting the horn and speeding up to keep her from getting in front of me; Turns out that just like the other woman in the Terrain, she was determined to get in front of me just so she could turn right at the Sonic restaurant as soon as she got onto 611.

One time in 2020, this same offramp was backed up, and a guy in a Ford Fusion used the shoulder to pass me on the right and blatantly cut me off...

 

Some people just have to be first. I’m not one of them. I’d actually prefer for people to be in front of me. I can what people are doing in front of me, but not behind me.

 

I hate when people zoom past me then cut me off to turn off to turn.

 

It's possible she might have been triggered by a magnet on my tailgate and/or a sticker on my back window, the context of which I cannot discuss publicly on TW, but I have no way of knowing this for sure; In January 2021, this girl in a Kia chased me down 611 to take pictures of my tailgate and then flipped me off as she passed me on the right, because she disagreed the magnets on my tailgate...

I didn't even realize the stupid bitch was back there until she passed me on the right and flipped me off, and I didn't know she had been trying to get a picture of the back of my truck until I reviewed the dashcam footage; I was first in line and she was directly behind me, and the first time she tried to take a picture, the light turned green and I gunned it. I believe she assumed I did know that she was back there and thought I was trying to ditch her. We came to another red light and my rear camera showed her taking pictures of my truck again. I have a leadfoot, and as soon as the light turned green I floored it again; Once again, I had no idea she was back there. It was at this point that I absentmindedly got into the left lane when I needed to be in the right lane so I could get gas at BJ's, and she pulled up alongside me in the right lane and flipped me off. I was utterly dumbfounded, and when I tried to get back into the right lane, she wouldn't let me; It was not until I saw a certain sticker on the back of her Kia that I realized why she had flipped me off.

 

@$yoda$
@6 gearT444E
@ABA180
@ColoradoTJ
@shakerhood
@Squatting Pigeon
@Taco critter
@TnShooter
@wilcam47

Contrary to what people who don't know me might think, I don't purposely go out of my way to cause trouble with other motorists. I certainly don't purposely tailgate people; One time in like January or February 2020, before COVID really got started, I was driving to a therapy appointment of all things. I was in the right lane, and there was a guy in a dark red late model Volvo S90 in front of me going slow; I couldn't pass him on the left because there were cars in that lane. I was not aggressively tailgating him, but I was a bit close for comfort; I was focused solely on getting to my appointment on time, and kind of had tunnel vision. Thankfully, I was paying attention...

The driver of the Volvo didn't just brake check me, but slammed on his brakes and practically came to a dead stop from well over 30 MPH; If I hadn't been paying attention, I would have rear-ended him, and that would have dragged out in court for a long time because I wouldn't have accepted full resposibility. One of my favorite pastimes is watching dashcam footage on YouTube; I am aware of a few cases where somebody rear-ended a brake checker and ended up being totally exhonerated from any liability because the dashcam footage proved that the brake checker had no reason to slam on their brakes. At worst, the insurance companies end up ruling 50/50; Anyway, I blasted my horn but ultimately did the right thing and didn't engage with the prick in the Volvo beyond that. He eventually got into the left lane and I ended up next to him; I gave him a "WTF?!?!" glare, but we did not exchange words.

 

@wilcam47

And then earlier this year I was on Main Street driving up the hill into Doylestown Borough; There was a white 1997-2003ish Ford F150 in front of me, and I was unknowingly tailgating him. The driver took this personally and decided to stop. I thought he was trying to make a turn, even though his signal wasn't on, so I attempted to go around him and he blocked me. This prompted me to just lay on the horn until he got moving again. Not far up the road he stopped again, this time with his left blinker on, and started angrily gesturing out his open window for me to follow him into the CVS parking lot...

I am reckless, but not stupid, and I was not about to do this; He just sat there for a few seconds, and I ultimately got impatient and beeped at him again. He didn't move, so I weighed my options and saw an opening between him and a car parked on his right. I just drove past him on the right and he attempted to block me, but I was too fast. Nothing else happened after that, but again, this was all because I was unwittingly following the guy a bit too closely!

 

@$yoda$
@6 gearT444E
@98tacoma27
@ABA180
@Charlie Too
@ColoradoTJ
@Plain Jane Taco
@Red Alert
@shakerhood
@Squatting Pigeon
@steelcity2
@Taco critter
@TnShooter
@wilcam47

It has been just over three years since I put in my two weeks at my job as a car detailer at a huge dealership, and almost exactly three years since I left that job (a week to be exact). My last day was Saturday, June 29th, 2019; I do not remember when I put in my two weeks, but I actually lied to my boss about having found a new job in HVAC because I was more or less on good terms with him and I couldn't just tell him that I was leaving because I hated working there.

The list of reasons it was a shitty place to work is endless, but the biggest reasons were that Saturdays were mandatory for part-time and employees like myself, and detailers got paid per vehicle rather than by the hour or getting an annual fixed salary. I started working there in early September 2018 and was ready to quit by December 2018; I was still working at Puck when I got the job at the detail job, but in October 2018 my boss informed me that Puck was going to be closing indefinitely at the end of January 2019 due to issues with the building that had to be fixed. I started doing Uber Eats in December 2018, but that wasn't enough to be my sole source of income, and I was stuck because I didn't feel like looking for another job...

There were issues practically from the start; When I first started working there, I was working Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday. I worked weekdays from 3:30pm to 9pm if I remember correctly, and Saturdays from 7:50am to 5pm. I wasn't even working there for a month before the stress of the clopening shift; My shift on Friday ended at 9pm if no salespeople brought in a vehicle purchased at the last minute, and it generally took about 20 minutes to drive home. If all went according to plan, I got home well before 10pm, but I am not the type of person who goes to bed early. If I wanted anything remotely resembling a good night's sleep, I had to hit the sack no later than midnight, and even then it was just too much; At least once, I lied about being sick to get out of working a Friday shift. I talked to my boss, and he was very reasonable; I was allowed to work Thursdays and have Fridays off, which greatly reduced my stress level. Not long after I got my shift changed, the dealership's hours changed, and weekday shifts went from 3:30-9pm to 2:30-8pm.

Puck closed in January 2019, and working during the winter and early spring was not bad at all; It was towards the middle of spring 2019 when the shop's lack of air-conditioning started to wear on me. And then, I started having to miss car shows because the vast majority of them were on Saturdays!

 

I will admit that I was spoiled by my job at Puck; When I did work weekends, it was almost exlusively after 12pm. I had plenty of time to sleep and was refreshed when I came in. By the end of 2018, I'd been at Puck so long and was regarded as such a good employee that my boss let me take the day off to go to car shows on weekends without question; Also, I generally worked evenings on weekends, so I could do a car show in the morning and afternoon on Saturday and be at Puck in time to work from early evening until around midnight. On Thanksgiving Eve one year, I worked 14 hours straight without missing a beat! One big difference between Puck and the detail shop is that at Puck, I got paid $10 an hour regardless of what I was actually doing. On really busy nights, I got a cut of the tips from the bartenders. Even if it was slow, I got paid just to be on standby.

At the detail shop, if there weren't cars and trucks to detail, I wasn't getting paid; After Puck closed, I found myself working on my days off to compensate for this unfair pay system. Between detailing cars, and driving for Uber Eats on the side, I was doing okay; However, working at the detail shop had completely burned me out before Memorial Day rolled around. That was another issue...

We had to work pretty much every holiday, which wore thin within three months of me starting work there. On Memorial Day Weekend in 2019, I had to work both Saturday and on Memorial Day!



Memorial Day at a car dealer detail shop and Memorial Day at a bar are two totally different things!

 

Damn, that sucks big time. I have not noticed a change in my electric bill so far (knock on wood). I keep my thermostat set to about 70 at night when sleeping and usually 73 during the day.

 

I forget what the hell happened and what weekend this was, as this was year ago, but the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back was when I agreed to work on one day in exchange for being allowed to take a day off for a car show on another day; My boss was short on detailers, and scheduled me to work almost an entire week straight without consulting with me first. He showed me where he'd filled it on his calendar and claimed that I'd agreed to it; He quoted me as saying "There's a lot of money to be made" in reference to a particularly lucrative weekend. I had in fact said those exact words, and agreed to work on one specific day, but I NEVER agreed to work multiple days. I begrudgingly worked the days I couldn't remember agreeing to work, and ultimately decided to quit in mid-June.

I drove DoorDash for two months from early July until early September to keep myself from going broke, and then the president of the company my dad works for offered me a part-time job; I still work here and am likely going to stay here.

 

To this day, detailing cars holds the record for most hoops I had to jump through in order to get the job...

For starters, I had to take a drug test; This I can understand since a significant portion of the job involves driving cars, many of them very expensive. The most expensive vehicle I actually drove during my time there was a brand new $80K Lincoln Navigator...

I will admit that I lied about prior drug use on the job application; The specific question was "Have you used any kind of drug in the last five years?" or somethign like that. This was in September 2018, and the one and only time I smoked weed was with a coworker at Puck on Memorial Day Weekend in 2015; At the time, that had been a little over three years earlier. I actually texted my boss from Puck while I was at the doctor's office for the drug test and pyshical, and asked her how to proceed; She told to just check "NO" on having used drugs in the last five years.

The physical was another thing; I passed it with flying colors, but that remains the only job I've had where I had to take one.

 

some people are crazy. When we lived in MD saw a news report some dude got cut off in a similar fashion, lady pulls over in a mini van and the guy jumps out and starts shooting at the van with either an ak or sks...if i remember dude got arrested.


Heres another from when we lived in idaho.

https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2018/apr/23/second-man-pleads-guilty-to-north-idaho-road-rage-/

 

@shakerhood

After I'd passed muster with the detail manager, passed a drug test, and gotten a physical, I had to go to the accounting department (which is in the same building as the detail shop) and fill out some paperwork before getting added to the payroll; In another first for any job I've had, before or since, I had to show proof of valid insurance on my truck before they added me to the payroll...

Why...?!?!

Because employees had previously backed into the vehicles of other employees, and apparently some of them were either underinsured or uninsured. Ironically, parking ended up being such a shitshow that with the exception of Saturdays, I had to park off the property. Detailers weren't allowed to park in the parking lot in front of the building on weekdays, and only managers and supervisors were allowed to park in the back due to a lack of space. The owner of this dealership also owned a body shop and towing company, the headquarters of which were located right next to the building where I worked. It was not technically against the rules to park over there, but the towtruck drivers were dickheads who believed they had exclusive rights to do so. I got into an altercation with the head tow manager after he blocked my truck in for parking on "his ramp". Towing employees routinely double-parked or otherwise parked in such a way so that detailers and anyone who wasn't a towing employee couldn't park there; Sometimes detailers, myself included, parked in the tow yard despite being repeatedly told not to.

This was the very same area where they put illegally parked vehicles they had towed from businesses they were contracted with, and vehicles that had to be towed from accidents; The gate was always open during business hours. It's not like they could tow my truck, since it was already in the area they towed impounded vehicles to; I also had the keys to my truck, and if they had made any attempt to deprive me of my truck or extort me for a towing fee, they would have been hearing from my lawyer.

 

Never knew you were a detailer. I can use you now. I have a car that needs paint correction and a new set of stripes. Did u like detailing ? Possibly a side gig ?

 

I draw the line at beeping and flipping people off...

On Christmas Eve in 2018, I decided to do an Uber Eats run to make some extra money; A guy in an Infiniti G35 cut me off and caused the customer's food that I'd just picked up to go flying. Luckily, it did not make a mess of my truck and the order wasn't even damaged, but I was pissed; I beeped at the Infiniti, and that should have been the end of it...

Less than a mile later, the Infiniti was stuck in traffic in the left lane, and I beeped at the guy again as I drove past in the right lane; This triggered him, and the next thing I knew he was chasing me and riding my ass. My plan was to just ignore him, but he zoomed around me in the left lane and cut me off. I tried to go around him numerous times, but he was matching me move for move and wouldn't let me pass. Unfortunately, we had already passed the police station, and I didn't know what to do; We were coming to a busy interesection where I had to make a left turn in order to drop off this Uber order. Of course, he got into the left turn lane as well...

I hopped the median and tried to pass him in the opposing lane, but thought better of this and got back into the left turn lane; The light turned red and we both came to a stop. The guy got out of his car and started approaching my truck; I was utterly terrified at this point. I don't think the guy had a gun, but I couldn't tell - I say again that this all started because I BEEPED AT HIM FOR CUTTING ME OFF - I didn't know what to do, so I made sure there was nobody coming; I got into the straight lane and ended up blowing through the red light to get away from this guy. I turned around in a shopping center parking lot and when I came back in the opposite direction, the guy in the Infiniti was gone; I still to this day have no idea what pissed him off so much.

 

I was not a bad detailer, but I wasn't the best either. I didn't hate detailing, but it's probably not something I would ever want to do as a primary source of income. I never did striping, and the only paint correction I've done is on my own truck, which turned out kind of sloppy; Also, I live about five hours from you, otherwise I could recommend numerous detail shops for you to take your truck to!

 

Look what I picked up last weekend.

Now u being a car nut, can u guess what year?

 

1996 or 1997? I know it's a 1993-1997 bodystyle, and I know it's newer than 1993-1994, but I'm not a huge expert on this era of Camaro; Sweet car though!

 

Ur good. 97. 30th anniversary edition, 6 speed manual. Thanks.

 

@steelcity2
@wilcam47

The strange thing is that the majority of actual confrontations I have do not occur while I'm driving (though sometimes it involves parking, and overwhelmingly involve perfect strangers who can't mind their own fucking business, rather than me actually doing something wrong. This has been going on for years, and never as a result of me actually doing something wrong; These incidents have included unknowingly parking in a handicapped space or private parking space that is very poorly marked, not putting a shopping cart back in the cart return when I was in a hurry, two separate occasions where I was taking my boss's dog out to use the bathroom on a hot day and people driving by took it upon themselves to stop and yell at me, the redneck at Buck Motorsports Park who got in my face for zoning out during the national anthem a year ago...

The most noteworthy incident would have to be in June 2020 when I went to Mission BBQ on my lunch break and took my mask down below my nose so my glasses woudln't fog up; Even back in 2020, Mission BBQ never came after people for not wearing masks, but some random guy took offense to the fact that I was not wearing my mask properly, decided to confront me about it, and likely would have ended up with a black eye or a bloody nose if the restaurant manager hadn't intervened...