Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 18:28:31 EDT
Reply-To: KENWILFY@AOL.COM
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: KENWILFY@AOL.COM
Subject: valet parking /F (ramblings)
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The valet in the title reminded me of when I was a Valet parker at the
Marriot in Chattanooga, TN several years ago. In my year there I never once
parked a Vanagon (I wasn't into them at the time but I was into VWs so I
would have noticed) or even a bus for that matter. I did park a Eurovan
Camper (Winnie) once and also a passenger EV. Both of these vans intrigued
me (as they were the biggest hunk of German steel I had ever seen). I even
tried to open the pop-top on the camper but I didn't know what I was doing.
So if you always wondered why your pop-top came open while you were going
70mph down the highway, and you were sure that you had shut it properly, now
you know. :)
If you think my fooling with the pop-top was a valet no-no (which was and I
hang my head in shame now as I think about it) you should have seen what some
of the other valets did. Some would swipe candy from the cars (do you count
your tick tacks?) and I think we even fired one guy for stealing money.
Also popping tires by rubbing them up against cement dividers was not unheard
of (my first day I did this one accidentally), and one guy crunched a brand
new Saab spoiler by jacking in the wrong spot after popping a tire. They
never told the customer and apparently he didn't notice (this was very evil
and I had no part in it).
Of course we got our share of customers who would try to get free body work
when they came in because they swore up and down that this scratch or that
ding wasn't on the car when it came in. It usually was and we documented
body damage before we parked all cars so we had paperwork to prove that the
customer was lying.
We even had one guy that got drunk one night and got kicked out of the hotel.
He had a car that was parked up near the entrance because he said that
reverse didn't work. Well anyway after he got kicked out of the hotel I
guess he went off the deep end and flew back to where ever he came from,
leaving the car behind. After a couple days my boss had it towed to an
impound lot. The guy showed up a couple months later when I was the only one
on duty. He cussed me up and down about "where was his car?" I was really
calm with him because he was making such an idiot of himself that I knew he
didn't need any help. I said that the car had been towed and that we
couldn't have let it sit where it was for two months. He cursed some more
and went up to the desk. The folks at the Hotel all disliked him and
basically laughed in his face when he told them what happened. I wonder if
he ever did get his car back? :)
Ken Wilford (former Valet parker)
Van-Again (now I spend my time under cars rather than in the driver's seat:)
John 3:16
