When my dad leased the station on 6601 Sheridan road there was a ’34 Ford tow truck with a blown engine in the back lot.
Edgewater Auto parts had a ’41 truck engine that been hopped up for a stock racer that never picked it up so they gave my Dad a very good deal on it. After we installed in in the ’34 Tow Truck we had to use only Ethel Gas in due to its 13:1 compression ratio. In the summer tine cans of HEET had to be added to keep that engine from knocking badly. It was fueled up with regular once, so we had to drain its tank!
One day after towing an auto up on the North Shore my Dad said “I wonder how fast this thing will go.” So he opened it up & away we want passing all the cars on the Eden’s expressway.
A few days later a customer told Dad that “he ought to fire that idiot that was driving the tow truck at some 90 MPH”
Dad laughed & told him that he was driving the truck!
Ike Simmons had a ’49 Old’s that blew its rear end on the South side – so Ike & I drove down to tow it back to the Station.
The trick was the trucks poor mechanical brakes – So every time that I had to slow up Ike grabbed the emergency brake handle & helped us stop safely on our long trip back.
There are other stories that would take too long to tell AND wouldn’t be beloved anyway!

[I’m sitting home on a day off when I get this extremely hilarious call from a wrong number]

Me- “Hello?”
Guy- “Who is this?”
Me- “What do you mean “who is this?”, You called me.”
Guy- “Uhhh, sorry. I was calling Earl. You’re not Earl are you?”
Me- “No, I’m not Earl.”
Guy- “This is Earl’s number, are you sure you’re not Earl?”
Me- “Fairly certain, yes.”
Guy- “Well, ok. You would tell me if you were Earl, right?
Me- “I suppose that would depend on why you were looking for him.”
Guy- “He owes me $200.”
Me- “Then I probably wouldn’t tell you even if I were him. Which I definitely am not.”
Guy- “I knew you were Earl!”
Me- “But I’m not Earl, we’ve been over this.”
Guy- “But if you aren’t Earl, who are you?”
Me- “I’m the guy that shot Earl.”
Guy- “Is he dead?”
Me- “The smart money is definitely not on him.”
Guy- “Goddamnit! Why’d you shoot Earl?!”
Me- “Because he owed me more money than he owed you.”
Guy- Earl!”
Me- “Sorry about your friend.”
Guy- He wasn’t my friend! That bastard owed me $200 and now I’ll never get it back!”
[Guy hangs up.]

My boyfriend and I are from Germany and decided to go on a weekend trip to Prague.
We had a lot of fun so we weren’t too annoyed when we learned that our train back to Germany would be delayed for quite a few hours.

Instead of waiting at the train station we went to the Národní muzeum (National Museum) and enjoyed all of their exhibits.
We payed for two extra exhibitions and tried to enter the second one before we had to leave but were denied access as the allowed number of visitors was reached.

We talked to the workers and it turned out they also spoke German. So we had a nice chat before we sat down waiting to be let in.

Suddenly a British family tries to enter the exhibition we were also waiting for. The woman working there tried her best with her limited English but I only listened with half an ear as I was talking to my boyfriend in German.
The worker repeats the word: “Patttzienzze” on and on. The British family was kind of confused (as was I) until it finally dawned on me and I blurted out: “OHHHH, PATIENCE!”

The family also has a lightbulb moment and thanks us before wandering off to look at other stuff in the meantime.

The woman then talked to her colleague who took the family further away making them look at something. As soon they were out of sight the woman waves us over, thanks us profusely and sneaks us into the exhibit.

We still smile about that story all the time and we plan on visiting Prague and the Czech Republic again when it’s safe to travel again.

It’s before the pandemic, and I let my cat outside on occasion so she can get some fresh air. Recently, some new neighbors moved in with some bratty kids. So far they’ve thrown rocks at cars, set fire to a wood pile in another neighbor’s yard, let their dogs run around without leashes in a “dogs-must-be-leashed” community, and I suspect that one of the dogs may have killed another neighbor’s cat, he’s just that mean. One day, my cat doesn’t come when I call her, so I’m a bit worried. She doesn’t show up the next day, or the next. I ask one of the good neighbors if she’d seen her, and she said she saw one of the bad neighbor’s boys pulling a cat’s tail from a distance. According to her, the cat yowled in pain, and the boy bonked it on the head with his fist. Worried, I decide to go ask my bad neighbor if she’s seen my cat.

Me: Have you seen (Cat)?

Bad Neighbor: (Gives me a dirty look) No, why would I know anything about your stupid cat? You shouldn’t let your f****** cat out anyway!

Me: (starting to lose my temper) There was no danger until you moved in! Your son was seen pulling a cat’s tail. We don’t have any strays around, and no one else lets their cat out with your dogs around! Now where is she?

Neighbor’s Son: (evil grin) She’s in Kitty Heaven.

Horrified, I burst out crying and call my good neighbor. She manages to calm me down, and she and her husband decide to confront the bad neighbors. The police are called, and the bad neighbor and her sons are questioned. Unfortunately, there’s no proof other than the boy’s words, and he changed the story constantly, so the best the police can do is warn them and cite the mother.

There is some good news, though. It turned out the boy was lying about my cat being dead, although she did have a new scar on her ear and burn marks on her tail. I took her to the vet and, other than having lost some weight, she was healthy. The vet treated the scar and the burn marks and I’ve kept Morgan inside ever since. The neighbors are still awful, and the police and child services have been called multiple times, but nothing’s ever been done.

I want to preface this with saying this story is very much NAW, who’s worse is up to you. Some details are fudged due to passage of time.
A couple of years ago, I was working at one of the local Subways, all owned by the same woman. About a 3 weeks after I started, this other girl wound up starting, let’s call her Kelsey. Kelsey didn’t seem interested in taking instruction, and was taking her sweet time learning to do the job. She spent a lot of time in the back on her phone, while letting me or whoever else she was working with handle… pretty much everything. About a week later, another girl started. We’ll call her Mandy. Mandy was clearly trying, but when I first met her, it was her second day, so she was still figuring things out. But she was getting there. (There wasn’t a whole lot to learn)
I had noticed that the managers insisted on giving Kelsey as much time as she needed to figure it out. But they were cracking down hard on Mandy, insisting she needed to get this down STAT. Double standards at play. I wound up going to the manager that day and pointed out as much: nobody seemed interested in cracking down on Kelsey, but they were putting a lot of pressure on Mandy. Totally not fair, and it would be probably be best to either crack down on Kelsey, or ease up on Mandy. Both would be best, really. The manager’s response? No. Just a straight up no.
I admit I got overly upset. I’ve struggled with such things in the past, and was still figuring out how to combat them at the time. I wound up violently panning bread for a couple of minutes before I was told to just go home for the day, and on the way out, I accidentally pushed someone into a doorframe (I was so angry I decided to ‘thrust’ myself through the doorway, throwing my arms out to do so, and they walked in just as my arms were in motion. I would’ve made impact even if I tried to stop.) and tried to slam the door on the way out, but couldn’t because hydraulics, so, I donkey kicked it. I felt the glass flex, and went off to the grass nearby to calm down and wait for the next bus.
I didn’t wait for too long, though. A friend showed up and offered to give me a ride home, which I accepted. I shortly afterwards received a text saying that I was fired, and to turn in my uniform. Unbeknownst to me, however, the police had been called. I had broken the door. I only found out about this in court, after receiving a letter saying I had to be in court on a certain day, since I had refused to look back at the building after I left, and hadn’t really paid attention since. The last I heard from the owner was her telling me to turn in my uniform. She never showed up in court, or even mentioned the broken door, which kinda rubbed me the wrong way. (Had she informed me herself I would’ve been shocked and offered to do whatever I could to correct it, since property damage was the furthest thought from my mind. As it was, I wound up doing community service because I couldn’t afford to pay up without a job…)
And that’s the story behind my personal boycott of any Subway owned by her.