You might think that after all those years of learning the ropes at this game, I would have become wiser or at least have a bit more sense, but you would be underestimating my bottomless well of stupidity.
After several days of email back and forth with a young guy in Hell (Palmdale), I became convinced that the huge accumulation of cards that he claimed to have inherited from his father who had owned a shop was worth the 120 round trip drive. He was asking for $5000 in his ad, but was willing to take 4K. I grilled him about what sort of stuff he had, and he answered to my satisfaction, so, early Saturday morning, with hopes of avoiding the 100+ heat that would be humping the Antelope Valley by mid day, I started the trek. 405 N to 5 N to 14 N. Blechh. To put it mildly, not the scenic route, unless you have a thing for vast expanses of brown, dead plants.
I got to the address he had texted me about 10AM. Here, I waited outside his Mom's house in beat down suburban craphole in the foreclosure capital of California for about 15 minutes while he "Got dressed real quick." To his credit, he was a nice young African American guy. Very polite, etc. We then drove about 10 miles (running calculation: 170 miles) across the most depressing landscape you will find outside of suburban Vegas to his "other house," where he had his cards stashed under the staircase. On this trip, I got the real story: his dirtbag father and he had been fixing up a '69 Mustang since he was a little kid. It was promised to him since then as his college graduation present. It was running like a top, dents banged out, primered, and ready to go, when aforementioned dirtbag, feeling some personal debts breathing down his neck, sold the car for cash + a huge number of cards. Evidently, buyer was the actual ex-shop owner. The kid had barely spoken to his father (4 years) since this escapade, and had stashed away the cards, thinking they were worth quite a bit, until now.
So, I sat on the porch as the heat began to beat down in earnest, while he and his flatbrimmed baseball hat type roomies pulled out box after box of valueless cardboard for my inspection. Approximately 40K cards, which I went through in about 10 minutes while his eyes widened in disbelief.
"So, where are all the good cards like we talked about on the phone?"
"Well, there was a box of good ones I pulled out, but I've been having trouble with my little cousin stealing shit..."
So, I had to tell him that he had about 15 bucks worth of recycling here and suggested we went out to his storage space, since he told me there were another 100K cards in boxes, and he hadn't gone through any of them (you see where this is going, right?).
15 miles into MF'ing LANCASTER later (running calculation 200 miles) we arrived at the storage space. Car says it was 102. He opens the rolling door to a space large enough to stash a car, and there is every kind of junk you can imagine stuffed in there. Old microwaves, broken toys, AND 2 6-foot stacks of 5000 card boxes. These took me a bit longer - maybe 15 minutes to determine that he probably 30 dollars of recycling.
Now, here's the thing: I have to drive this guy back, and he's a nice kid, so I can't just scream at him for wasting my time and money and leave him to walk home. I have to suck it up, get back in the car with him, and just figure 15 miles back to his "other house," back on the freeway, and forget this whole thing. BUT (!) on the way back, he gets a call from Mama, who is hysterical. He calms her down for 10 minutes while gesturing which way to turn, and then (while covering the phone) says, "My man, I'm sorry to do this to you, but could you take me back to my Mama's house?" So, that's ANOTHER 10 miles (210). On the ride over there, he explains to me that his little brother got thrown in jail for being in the backseat of a car of gangstas the night before. There was, ostensibly, no room in the car with his friends after a party, so he took a ride. Cops pulled them over, found an unregistered handgun in the car, and chucked them all in jail.
He asked me if I knew what to do, if he needed a lawyer, etc. What the hell do I know? So, I'm legal counsel, taxi driver, and unpaid appraiser of valueless card collection, all rolled into one.
Joy.
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