Does this smell stinky to you?

I recently got a letter from Kwik Trip saying a car with my license plate was seen driving away without paying for gas at 5:07 am on a weekday in Marshalltown, IA--a faraway city I have never visited. It was written with clumsy English phrasing and asked me to send a credit card number, so I thought it was a scam and ignored it.

Then I got another letter that was very threatening. I was concerned that the sender somehow had my license plate number, name and address, so I sent a message to the Kwik Trip corporate office via its website instead of the contact info on the letters to see if it was legitimately from them--and they promptly responded to say yes, and whoever drove away without paying either had an altered license plate or had stolen one of mine--and *I* needed to file a police report and provide Kwik Trip with layers of proof that it wasn't my car that drove away.

I wrote back using my anger words saying 1) if they don't demand a credit card or up-front payment before letting people pump gas it's their irresponsible corporate practice and therefore their problem, not mine, 2) I have no obligation to spend time calling the police and chasing down paperwork to send them based on unsubstantiated, poorly written accusations, and 3) the burden of proof is on them and they need to send me a photo of my car and license plate at their pump or leave me the fuck alone. They promptly wrote back again to tell me that they had benevolently canceled my "account" and that I "owed" them no money.

So questions: Does this smell stinky? Do you think it's some kind of Kwik Trip corporate scam? Did they illegally obtain my personal and vehicle information? Did they by any definition harass me? Should I call the police on them?

In the mean time: If their stupidly spelled name weren't enough to drive you away, DON'T SHOP AT KWIK TRIP so you can prevent yourselves from being scammed. Fucking assholes.

I have a paper trail and a string of stupidly incriminating emails from Kwik Trip. I'm gonna keep pursuing the issue with the police and the Better Business Bureau and all of Twitter just to be a pain in the ass back at them.

Four serious allegations

OK. I’ll cop to the charges of wearing cargo shorts and owning Abercrombie & Fitch over the age of 22—and I will totally Javert you for turning me in, whoever you are—and I assume the other two charges are pre-emptive for grammar-shaming the robocall for saying “four serious allegations pressed on your name” and “so that we can discuss about this case” and for awkwardly flirting with any of the local police who might be cute, but I refuse to lower my standards to the point of calling an an upstate New York area code because I’m a Manhattan-or-nothing kind of wannabe New Yorker. 

So come and take me under custody—especially if we get to sing “Cell Block Tango”—cute local coppers!

Things I learned today in Manhattan:

• A ten-minute pedi-cab ride COSTS SEVENTY DOLLARS. That’s not a typo, and since the rates were carefully hidden up-front, there wasn’t a tip-o.

• It’s perfectly fine to look at the headshots in a Broadway program and then read the bios in the order of who’s cutest. Just as long as you don’t broadcast that you’re doing it on social media.
• It is all but impossible to walk a block in Manhattan without passing through a cloud of marijuana smoke.
• Also, Manhattan is so crowded that even if you’re completely certain that you’ve found a secluded spot in, say, a corner of a theater lobby to, say, quietly relieve yourself of a little gas, you’ll notice as soon as you’re done that someone had also ducked into that same corner to squat down behind you to tie his shoe.
• If you’re afraid to stop and crane your neck and look like a tourist, you’ll miss a lot of breathtaking architecture.
• We’re back in a golden age of Broadway belters who don’t need microphones to overpower an orchestra and throw you against the back wall on the money notes.
• Our hotel hallway is missing a set of gingham-clad twins asking Danny to come play with them.
• Seriously: I GOT SCAMMED INTO PAYING SEVENTY DOLLARS TODAY FOR A TEN-MINUTE PEDI-CAB RIDE.

#HowToTurn50 #AndBlithelyFartOnStrangers

ADDENDUM:

• There is nothing more valuable in life than a friend who understands you AND understands how to use Photoshop.