The White Van Scam…

It was summer of ’07 when we headed to Montreal on a road trip with 4 kids. My hubby decided we’d take the car to save on gas and squeeze the four skinny kids in the back while we enjoyed the luxury of the spacious front seats. The kids were a little shit faced about the decision to squeeze them all into the back seat of the car but hey, they weren’t forking the bill for the gas and the adventure so they needed to suck it up and get fucking comfortable with each other back there.

Let’s back it up a bit to a few months before our road trip. We had been visiting with Cuzin G. My hubby always loved stopping by for a drink and getting caught up with cuz on his recent purchases. Now cuz had new shit every single time we went there to show us, from new dress shoes, to crazy ass outfits to big screen TVs to a freezer full of steaks and chicken, you get the point….he knew “people”. He was completely obsessed with getting his sound system right and my hubby was completely obsessed with competing with him when it came to the sound systems. This one particular day we dropped by and Cuzin G was pumping the music as loud as he could, he was syked to show my hubby this fucking new system he just got…it was a bit crackly as my hubby pointed out to Cuzin G but overall it wasn’t too bad. Next time we went back he made some modifications and my hubby was impressed, no more crackle when the music went about 2 on the sound dial. My hubby told him “hook me the fuck up man”, which meant when the “guys” come around with another system to “grab” it for him. Now Cuzin G wasn’t about to give my hubby the edge in sound systems, since this was a bit of a competition he never did get my hubby the fucking “hook up”.

Back to our road trip…we hit the Big Stop in Sackville New Brunswick to take a break and grab some food. As we headed out to our car we were approached by a guy who was claiming to have a great deal on sound systems. As I rolled my eyes and kept walking with the kids, you guessed it my hubby was hooked on the very thought of getting a better sound system than Cuzin G. So my hubby falls back and decides he’s going to check this “deal” out. “Babe, Baaaaabe” I hear him yelling, “come here for a minute”. In my head I’m like for fuck sakes there goes my shopping money so let me try to ensure my hubby doesn’t buy whatever this guy is selling. As I approach my hubby he’s fucking syked, I can see it in his eyes. He starts walking towards me to meet me half way, eyes all round, wide and bugging out of his head…”Babe you ain’t gonna fucking believe this, this dude is selling top of the line sound systems” I was like “ok”…he started to give me the sales pitch…”the system is like 2 grand in the stores and this guy said they got a truck load with extras so they are selling them at cost” Insert eye roll here, clearly he needed a voice or reason in this situation. Soooo here goes a valid effort on my behalf….”Babe seriously, think about what you are saying, this doesn’t even make sense, his story doesn’t add up” hubby was NOT hearing a word I’m saying. Ok, I tried a different approach…”babe the box is probably full of rocks, I’m all for a “deal” but fuck this guy ain’t from our hood, we don’t know him, we won’t be able to find him if this system is shit” again, he didn’t want to hear the voice of reason…let me try a different approach I thought…”Ok, let’s see what’s in these boxes then make a decision”

As we approach the guy in the white van I tell him I want him to open the box and let my “expert” hubby inspect the merchandise, he does just that. I’m starting to shift my opinion at this time but I was still skeptical. Buddy opened the back of his van and low and behold he had a van full of sound systems…no wonder my hubby couldn’t stop smiling he felt like he had hit the fucking jackpot. These were some big ass boxes too so if the opened box passed my hubby’s inspection I was patiently waiting to advise him that our trunk was full and barely closed when we left, after all we had packed for 6 people for 7 days there was NO room in the trunk for an eyelash let alone a box full of a 7 piece sound system.

Upon initial inspection my hubby was over the moon happy…but the moment he got super fucking happy was when he saw the name brand box of the exact system Cuzin G had back in Halifax. I knew at this point there was no fucking way were leaving without this sound system. “Baaaaaaaabe” he says, “Holy Fuck this is the same system Cuzin G got and you fucking know how good that system sounds, he paid 500 for his from “his guy” and this guy is willing to give it to me for 400″. Insert eye roll once again, I knew I was fighting a losing battle so we offered the guy 300 bucks and took the damn sound system and walked back to our car…the guy in the white van drove off with a big ass smile on his face.

This box was so fucking big, like I said early we had no damn room to put this box…trunk was full and the kids were already in the back seat like sardines so what were we going to do with this sound system. Hubby had a brilliant plan…he took out as much of the luggage that he needed to make the box fit and put anything that wouldn’t fit back in the trunk in the back seat with the kids…I kid you NOT he did this…we had like 11 hours or so to reach our destination and he didn’t give two shits about comfort because his joy was in that box in the trunk and truth be told I suggested we turn around and go back home but he insisted we carry on to our destination.

Now hubby was like a kid in a candy shop, so much so that about half way through our drive to our destination he decides he wants to get a hotel room (totally unnecessary). The one and only reason why he wanted to get a hotel room was so he could unpack his sound system box and admire it…No fucking lie, that was his reason. Of course we got a hotel room and then it all started to unravel.

We all crashed in one room and hubby starts unpacking the box one speaker at a time. “oh my God babe, look at this” to which I replied “yeah, wow, looks amazing” in my sarcastic way. He’s only got the cardboard out of the box and one speaker in his hand at this time…”Fuuuuuck I can’t wait to hook this all up” he says. “Cousin G is gonna be blue mad when I get this all set up at home” he says as he continues to take piece by piece out of the box. “Yeah he’ll be blue mad all right” was all I could reply to him, with an eye roll of course. Then I pick up one of the heavy ass speakers…It was heavy as fuck so I asked him “why are the speakers so fucking heavy babe?” he replies with “Babe, fuck…that’s because they’re high end”. I hand him the speaker back and the front face of the speaker pops off… “babe be careful with this, fuck” he says. Now I’m thinking if this is a really expensive sound system how did the front face of the speaker pop off so easily….but I didn’t bother saying my thoughts at that time. I go about my business getting the kids ready in the bathroom for the night and all of a sudden he yells “FUUUUUUUCK” repeatedly about two thousand times…”Mother fucker” he says. At this point I am 100% sure that he made a discovery about his sound system that he wasn’t expecting. I start laughing and from the bathroom I say “what’s wrong babe, something wrong with the sound system?” knowing very well he’s just made the discovery that he had been bamboozled.

“That mother fucker, I should’ve known, fuck why didn’t I listen to you?” he proclaims. Now at this point I got one of the kids in the tub and I’m in the bathroom fucking losing it laughing but I’m doing it quietly and the kid is asking “what’s so funny mommy?” and I’m putting my finger to my lips saying “shhhhh” because the kid is ratting me out. Hubby get’s really pissed when he realizes that I’m laughing at him…”what’s so fucking funny?” he yells. I don’t respond…”Oh you think this is funny” he yells again…I don’t respond… “babe come fucking see this, seriously come fucking see this”. I get my composure together and go to see what all the fuss was about. This system was supposed to be the top of the line wireless system, according to Cuzin G. Hubby is holding up a speaker in one hand and a bunch of cords in the other hand. The cords were all those U shaped spade plugs, you know the kind that you unscrew something in the back of the speaker and shove the U shaped wire into it then tighten the screw to hold the U shaped wire in place. I think it was a popular thing in sound systems in the 70s or 80s I really don’t know but it surely wasn’t for a top of the line “wireless” sound system and I’m no sound system expert.

I’m looking and the speaker face popped off another speaker, it appeared they were glued on by a glue stick. Inside the speaker was something unexpected for such an “expensive” sound system, there was a cement block attached to the back of the speaker. Basically, if you’re looking for a visual here is what I was looking at… A black spray painted wooden box with a plastic cover glued to the front of the box, also spray painted black for consistency. Then when you “handle” the wooden speaker box the plastic cover would kindly unglue itself and inside there is the discovery of the cement block and nothing else…like, literally nothing else. Man oh fucking man I completely fucking lost it laughing….one hand full of wires and another one with a wooden box…how could I not laugh?

I told hubby to leave that garbage at the hotel but he insisted on packing it up and taking it all with us, I had no clue why and when I asked him all he said was “I’m not leaving my 300 bucks behind” As you can imagine that night and the next 7 days were all about this sound system.

When we got back home I realized that my hubby had brought back the “sound system” to try to hook it up at home…like he actually fucking tried to hook it up, he was in complete denial clearly. Of course you can’t get sound out of a wooden box just because you hook some U plugs to it, everyone knows this…right?

Without delay we go drop by Cuzin Gs place to tell him what happened. Hubby is like yeah, then this happened, then that happened, then we did this and then I realized they were garbage blah blah blah. Cousin G is losing his shit laughing…he was like “fuck off”, “no way man” and hubby was getting into it, we’re all laughing our asses off. Finally hubby says to Cuzin G, “man I want that same sound system as yours, I need you to get me the real fucking hook up” and Cuzin G says “you already got the same sound system as mine” and of course hubby was like “man you know what I mean” and Cuzin G says “no man for real” and hubby was like “man, I mean the hook up, hook up cuz” and Cuzin G says “man you got yours from a guy driving a white van right?”, “Yeah” hubby says…”Well mother fucker that was my hook up, that mother fucker got me too” Cuzin Gs speakers were not “wireless” they were fucking just sitting there perpetrating a fraud….literally…just there for show, he too, got White Van Scammed and that is what the White Van Scam was all about (google it) ~Holla