CONGRATULATIONS, YOU ARE A WINNER ...

Depending on what you win, you could end up one big fat loser. You could receive a congratulatory letter, an invite of sorts: “Pick up your free Sony flat-screen television at the Marriott.” So you’re seated in a large conference area, waiting to hear a spiel—there’s always a spiel, nothing’s ever truly free, you don’t mind, let me hear the spiel—and a spokesperson announces “this is a police round-up, put your hands on top of your head.” You get that sinking feeling, you realize you should’ve paid all those parking tickets, that not paying all those parking tickets has landed you, like a fly on shit, in the middle of a room full of dangerous criminals. They, in turn, think the same thing … they’re the fly, you’re the shit.

During my chauffeuring days, my boss donated his limousine service for a fundraiser. His two spoiled children attended Cranbrook Schools and for reasons not related to cash flow (the school district is one of the wealthiest in Michigan), they sold ten-dollar raffle tickets offering a plethora of prizes.

My clients, a husband and wife duo, won the limousine package, thus winning my services. After traveling two blocks, the back tires started rubbing against the wheel wells and the Wifey asks, “What’s that noise?”

“What noise?” I say, turning quickly onto Woodward, trying to ignore the warning signs, heading for the Whitney restaurant in Detroit, the smell of burnt rubber and small plumes of smoke beating us around the corner. I know what to do. I reach under the dash, push a little orange button, the steady hum of air pumped into shocks, separating wheels from wells.

No more problems. The old Lincoln stretch crawling along like an old thirsty dog; The Detroit Zoo water tower approaching the horizon; Coleman A. Young in bold print, a symbolic warning to behave in the city or hit the other side of Eight Mile. We hear a gunshot. But we’re far from the dividing line. My clients want to know why I’m scrambling to the shoulder of the road. What was I to say, “Because you and your wife are extremely obese and you blew the shocks on the car.” Instead, I apologize, offering my standard, “I-don’t-know I-haven’t-a-clue” explanation.

“We have dinner reservations,” the Wifey says. “Can you get us another car?”

What they need, I’m thinking, is a heavy duty crane to haul their asses to Weight Watchers. I play it safe, “It’s a one car operation.”

I’m mad. They’re mad. I call a tow truck. They call a cab. The evening’s a total bust. For them. For me. There are no winners here.