To the guy in the Mustang convertible:

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Bitchin' ride, bro. Seriously. I am envious.

While it is many things, a good cargo-carrying vehicle it is not. So when you head out to the swamp to do some shopping, and pick up a big storage cabinet, it might be a good idea to have the thing held for you while you obtain a larger vehicle.

I mean, it would have been a better idea than what you came up with: putting down the top and laying the cabinet down sideways over the back seat, with nothing securing it.

And you said you had to drive to the next town over with it. At least you gave the service desk ladies something to talk about.

If I walk in tomorrow to find a storage cabinet smashed into itty bitty pieces, I will know why.

[Sandiercy]

Please say you have a video of this! We want to know!!!

[wolfie]

I believe it was Seinfeld that used this in one episode, where they pulled the "free rental" on a big screen TV for a major event. They were on their way to return it, hit a bump, and the giant box was no longer in the car.

[catcul]

When I worked retail, one thing I hated was trying to cram a huge TV into a little car.

This reminds me of a story I believe happened somewhere in Pennsylvania. A man bought a riding lawn mower and rejected the $50 delivery fee. He drove it home with his wife driving behind him flashing her hazard blinkers. They got pulled over by the police, and they forced him to leave the lawnmower there. He had to pay the hardware store the $50 to deliver it to his house, plus the $250 ticket the police gave to him for driving a non street-legal vehicle on the street.

Wait, it gets better. If he had driven his lawnmower down the side of the street, cutting the grass, he would have been legal.

[downforit2008]

During my times at W-Mart, I used to see people buy entire dining room tables and barbecue grills, and then ask me to load it into their SMART-CAR for them. Who was SMART here to be buying these things with a vehicle like that? Not them!

[catcul]

At least when my dad bought his grill, he brought his Ford F-350.

[Captain Trips]

Sometimes I miss my 1969 Oldsmobile Delta Custom 88. I once moved a couch on the back seat. With doors closed. (Actually, it was a sofa-bed.)

[Stop Laughing]

When I was a kid we had a station wagon and used it to play 'musical sofas' when a friend of ours bought a new one, then we gave their old one to my grandma and we got her old hide-a-bed (we still have this one). Good times...

[Racket_Man]

You would not believe the furniture and other items I have stuffed into and on top of my various vehicles AND the distances I have traveled with them.

That said I am smart about the way I do load and travel with said items even with a smallish vehicle.

[Automan Empire]

My auto shop is next to a family run unfinished furniture business. Every day I watch overly-optimistic people playing furniture-tetris using unrealistically small vehicles.

Glad I haven't owned a pickup truck for decades, the requests for help moving are unending. Let me just say that trailers rock!

[Jay 2K Winger]

I once helped a woman load a big lounge chair into a VW Beetle. When we got out to her car, I gave it a dubious look and said, "This isn't going to--" and she cut me off, saying, "Yes it will. I got another one home earlier."

Imagine my surprise when it DID end up fitting. We had a laugh about it. "I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it."

[dalesys]

I once helped a woman load a big lounge chair into a VW Beetle.

Stuffing a Beetle was a sport when I was a sprout... It took a *real* acrobat in the back seat...

[wolfie]

Before I got my first car, I bought vertical blinds for my condo. Due to the size of the living room window, the package was 2 boxes taped together, one around 5 feet long (the panels), and one about 12 feet long (the tracks). From the store to my place took 2 buses.

First bus must have been ahead of schedule, driver said he didn't think it would fit, but I was welcome to try (late at night, few other passengers). Turns out I could get it in through the back doors, sliding it through the handrails behind the stepwell until it hit some part of the bus (other end was now in the stepwell), forward through the handrails ahead of the stepwell, and down the aisle to the croswise seating behind the rear doors.

Second bus driver said there was no way it would fit. My reply? "I got it here by bus - could you open the rear doors so I can get it onto the bus?" Zip, zip, package on the bus.

[Rapscallion]

Stuffing a Beetle was a sport when I was a sprout... It took a *real* acrobat in the back seat...

Is that what the youngsters call it these days?

Rapscallion

[wolfie]

Is that what the youngsters call it these days?

I assume you're interpreting either "stuffing a beetle" or "acrobat in the back seat" as a euphamism for sex. I doubt if that's what Dalesys means - even though it's a logical assumption based on his previous posts.

Back when the air-cooled Beetle was still being sold in North America (ended in early '70s), a common college stunt was to see how many people they could fit into one - that's what "stuffing a beetle" meant. Considering the size of the car, it would take a fair amount of acrobatics to get multiple people into the back seat.

Another common stunt was to see how many people they could fit into a telephone booth and still get the doors closed. Of course, it was probably a bit before your time when REAL telephone booths with doors were in use (as opposed to "phone hung on wall with small partition on each side"), and for the current generation, the concept of "telephone booth/pay phone" is archaic.