This story is a continuation of Frankies New Smoker and to make sense of this blog you need to read the other one first
Our workshop door opened directly onto the forecourt,
there was just enough room for a car to get through between our display of used
cars that were parked diagonally along the front wall and the garage. It had
never been a problem before but since we had bought the petrol station next
door and knocked the adjoining wall down you had to have your wits about you as
people had started to take a short cut by driving through our garage to avoid queuing
at the roundabout.
Yellow = Road
Red = Short Cut
I took one step out and looked to my right, I saw a car
coming at an incredible speed it was a red Fiesta XR2 the type normally driven
by boy racers and I had to jump out of the way otherwise it would have hit me,
as the car went speeding past I ran after it and threw my glasses guide at the
car, the guide bounced off his rear windscreen as he rejoined the road and sped
off into the distance, I had seen the same car do this before and always around
the same time of day, but today he had driven a lot faster so that he could filter
into the traffic at the same speed, if he’d hit me I would have been severely
injured, as is my way I needed to get my own back on this guy and teach him a
lesson, and the “Funnel Trap Plan” was hatched, yes I know it’s sad but I even
had a name for it.
I had previously suggested
that we block the entrance or put a gate across before someone got killed,
namely, me as I spent the most time outside, valuing cars, etc), in the few
weeks, since we had knocked through there, had been several near misses but the
mechanics wanted it kept open as it was easier for them to get to our compound
without having to drive around the block, I didn’t particularly care what the
mechanics thought but I couldn’t close it off now otherwise my Funnel Trap wouldn’t
work,
The next day I had everything in place, but I had just
nipped out in my car to get lunch so my trap was open-ended, as I was about to
turn back on to our forecourt and close it again I saw a beige fiesta enter my “Funnel”
at an alarming speed, I was in my Isuzu Trooper and it had a
Massive Bull Bar on the front, if any of you have seen the original “Italian
Job” where Rossano Brazzi drives his beautiful Lamborghini Muira into a tunnel
in the Alps, but comes out the same way after
crashing into and being pushed out by a JCB Earthmover, this was going to be a cheap
remake in Walton Le Dale if he didn’t slow
down, there were 4 male occupants in the Fiesta and I won our game of “Chicken”
the driver held his hand constantly on the horn and they were all swearing, shouting
and gesturing at me to move my car “Or
Else” I got out of my car as slowly as I could, locking the door behind me I held my hand up and cupped it around my ear as if I was hard of hearing and said “Say Please”
that was when I noticed that there was a white Range Rover speeding across the
forecourt too.
The four Police Officers in the unmarked Range Rover jumped
out and surrounded the Fiesta, “Hands in the Air and get out of the car, they
shouted and banged on the car windows showing that they were in no mood to be
disobeyed, the occupants were suspected of drug dealing the Police had seen
them acting suspiciously and started to follow them, as soon as the driver saw
he was being tailed he decided to try to lose them, he was doing and had put a
bit of distance between them by taking chances through the traffic but then he’d
driven into my funnel trap, the Police handcuffed the Dealers and commenced
searching the car, a quantity of drugs were recovered along with various
weapons, If I was going to continue in this way trying to shake off my “Frankie”
nickname, I decided I may need to put a Bullet Proof vest on my list to Santa.
A few weeks had passed and the owner of the Red Fiesta hadn’t
been across our forecourt again, but I continued setting the Funnel Trap, I had
caught quite a few others and although I didn’t move the other car into
position to block them in, the offenders were forced to reverse the length of
our forecourt and rejoin the queue of traffic that they were trying to avoid,
to be honest it was becoming a pain because every time I wanted to go out on
test drive I had to move my own car so that I could get out, I had just moved
it and opened the funnel when another car drove onto the forecourt and blocked
me in, I was caught in my own trap, I wouldn’t have bothered if it had been a
customer for us but he and his wife started to walk towards the Caravan Sales
Pitch next door.
I walked over to him and very politely said “Excuse me,
if you’re going into the caravans please could you move your car, they have plenty
of room in their car park, as you can see we are a little congested and I am
trying to get out” the guy didn’t look
like the type of person I would get on with, and he snapped back “I’ll only be
a minute, you’ll have to wait” things come out of my mouth before my brain has
time to censor them and I said to him “Unfortunately I’ll only be a second, so
either you move it now, or I will” the guy jumped in his car and slammed the
door, as I walked away I heard his engine rev, and the squeal of tyres, I
looked over my shoulder to see he was driving straight at me, I jumped out of
the way and flattened myself against the wall, but his door mirror caught me in
the back and snapped clean off.
He skidded to a halt further up the forecourt, it wasn’t like
I’d done it on purpose but he jumped out
of the car shouting “you’ve broken my door mirror” and started running towards
me, his wife had come over to me to see if I was ok, and she was screaming at
him to calm down, I couldn’t turn and run or I would be known as “Frankie
Howard” forever so I stood my ground adopted a T stance and through gritted
teeth said to his wife, “I hope your Husband has Life Insurance!” , by the time
I had embellished it a little this was going to make an excellent story in the
Swan on Sunday.
In my experience Bullies only bully people who are either
smaller than them or were intimidated by them, when he realised that I was
neither he backed down, instead, he picked his mirror up off the floor and
walked back to his car, muttering that he was going to “Wipe the smile off my
face” if he ever saw me when I was out, I never saw him or the driver of the
Red Fiesta XR2 again, I lived to fight another day, “Frankie” died, my new
Nickname “Crambo” was born and the “Funnel Trap” was discontinued.
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