FARMER meets FURTHER

so as i have mentioned before my husband has a little bit of problem with toyota chin vans. just last week he bought ANOTHER one. this will be van number 5. at this particular point in time we own 3 of them. im starting to agree with my friends, and im considering calling in INTERVENTION. surely theres a facility somewhere in new mexico that deals with this type of addiction...? but anyways! whatever...

so this post is a tad long, but has to be to even touch on the subject. i could go into far more detail, but ill try to keep it to the point. perhaps you remember further the van? she was a beauty - and so was the person we sold it to. his name was FARMER. let me fill you in on how we met him... we came out to Further one morning last fall to find on the van a florescent tag with an email address on it along with a circular metal cutout of a stickman. 5 seconds of looking at the circle thing and i realized it was a 'burning man' emblem. no note... no name... no reason for leaving both items wedged into the window frame, so we carried on with our day. a few hours later we came back, and as we were hopping out of the van we saw a guy quickly getting out of a trashed white car behind us to start walking toward us. let me describe what he looks like so you can get a visual 'feel' for what type of guy he is...
Clothing: 'navy blue' T-shirt (at least a good 10 years of wear/tear, sunfade and the odd bleach spot) with a spiral tye-dye circle on the front. denim jeans that are AT LEAST 3 sizes too big for him held up with a belt that is also far too big. he doesn't feed the extra long length of belt through the loops, so it flops back and forth and all around like a foot long loose penis... (i HATE when guys do this with their belts...ew.) don't remember the shoes but there was definitely no underwear.
Body/Face: you've seen him before im sure. if you've ever attended ANY outdoor festival or party - he was there. you know, white guy, slight build, 5 6" and whacked on magic mushrooms? thin weasel like face with an out of control "soul patch". given 5 years, his mousy hair will be seriously receding but he'll still keep it shoulder length as it is now. it has that crunchy quality that curly hair has after it dries. his favorite stance is legs spread wide, hands resting on his head after running his fingers through his hair. this of course lifts the t-shirt up to mid-stomach giving all a great view of of the pubes poking out above the swinging penis belt. yup, a real stunner. a players brand cigarette is burning at ALL TIMES.

"DUDES! that is one SWEET VAN! did you get my business card? im Farmer!" hmmmm ok... it was his 'business card'. we say yes and i tell him i recognize the burning man emblem. BIG mistake. he somehow thinks ive said that ive attended burning man and am im going again this year because HE is and this van would be perfect for the trip! we say no, not this year... i can tell zoltan is getting annoyed and wants to leave. we say something about selling it for $1500 and we really need to get inside now... after a few more minutes of verbal bla bla blahing from Farmer he finally leaves. we roll our eyes as he screeches away - his little white car vibrating with some sort of horrible electronica.

the few days later im driving home from a friends house... its 11pm and im at a red light. all of the sudden a man jumps out of the car in front of me and runs up to my window. i barely have the time to roll up my window and hes standing there banging his chest yelling "ITS ME!!! ITS FARMER!!! can you pull over? its about the van!!" the light turns green and feeling ok about the situation i pull in behind his beater of a car. i wont even get into the conversation here. it revolved around his love of the van and Psytrance - - cue sound of screeching record! TRANCE let alone PSYTRANCE has got to be my all time most loathed type of music. it makes me cringe inside even writing the words. i just hate it. now dont get me wrong - i love plenty of electronica, but trance KILLS ME. please listen to this track at least until the 46 second mark to get what im talking about...

before i knew it he had me over by his car where he started playing me clips of these horrible tracks! WTF? how did i get here? there was also a super creepy 'shrine' to burning man covering his WHOLE dashboard! i told him i really had to get home as it was late. he then offered me $1000 and 2 evenings of his 'DJing services' for the van. i told him id tell my husband and give him a call tomorrow.

zol decided we sell for $1100 and big NO THANK YOU on the DJing offer. we didn't need to call Farmer because he was camped out on our street waiting for us the next day. creepy... he agreed on the price but needed a ride to the bank machine after we dropped off his other car at his house. okkkk... this should maybe take 30 mins max? NOPE! 2 hours! see, this is were we made the mistake of letting him 'test drive' the van with us in it. perched in the back (no seat, just the bench) with his huge smelly dog i held on as he skidded around town - 1st to the bank machine, then the insurance place, then back to his house to introduce us to his brother? then on his way to dropping us back at home he picked up two of his buddies! all 3 of us now in the back with the dog slamming up against each other as Farmer four-by-foured through bumpy alleyways... i was ready to KILL THIS GUY by now. we finally got home where he gave us both hugs that were WAY too long and told us how cool we were- he even tried to cop a feel of my ass! we thought we were saying goodbye for the last time... turns out we weren't.

i guess in the minds of some people, if you force others to 'hang out' with you for a few hours, they become your new best friends. the next few months were peppered with Farmer showing up at our backdoor asking for help with things on the van. the 1st time was the scariest. our backdoor was open and i was in my office. there was a loud rapping on the door and all of the sudden he was in the house, smoking a cigarette with a "HEY BABE! WHERES THE BATHROOM??". BABE?? im not the type to be called 'BABE' at ALL! after coming out his hair was soaking wet...? he talked my ear off for 10 minutes and then proceeded to knock an entire bowl of freshly shucked peas out of my hands and all over my kitchen floor. he left after he saw my face... i was pissed about my peas and my soaking wet bathroom when i saw that. three more times he came to the door and this last time i FINALLY didn't answer. (why did it take me that long? who knows?) didnt he GET IT? every time hed asked for help zol hadn't gotten back to him!? after hearing the last knock on the backdoor, i looked out our bedroom window. i saw him running across our yard and back to further the van where he stood doing something in the van doorway for 20 minutes. another bang on the backdoor. finally he left. i opened the door. there was an little army figure with his 'card' attached to it STUCK TO THE DOOR WITH CHEWING GUM!!! seriously! GUM??? who does that?? see picture to see what it said....

Horn not working?? seriously? dinner?/cash!?? oh could we pleeeease??? i insisted that zol email him this time and tell him to leave us the hell alone. he got a good deal on the van and it wasn't our problem that he rode the shit out of the poor thing and needed help fixing it on a regular basis. for gods sake GET A F@%KING MECHANIC. zol did email him and sensing that we may have a crazy stalker on our hands nicely said the above. we haven't heard from him since thank god. sometimes i feel like im a tad judgmental of people, but in the case of Farmer i think im pretty spot on - this guy was whacked! and this post didn't even come close to sharing how truly annoying this guy was. my question is, how do people get like this? total disregard for the time and personal space of others? opinions? *d

FURTHER - Van #4

my hubby loves ebay. he's been a dedicated junkie for years now and i have to give him credit, he never runs out of things to search for. i'm tapped out after 5 minutes, it's just not my thing. he's great at selling things as well. i'm not sure how he comes up with the wording that makes someone buy a 'vintage' (used) toothbrush - but he does! so, he looks - he sells and yes... he buys. id say it kind of all equals out in the end so i don't really care. let me rephrase that... i USUALLY dont care.

last spring, mid-afternoon i jumped on ebay for some reason. in the myEbay summary section of our account is saw the sum of $500 in bold green. (that means you've won/sold something) there was no visible thumbnail of the won item so i clicked on it. id already seen the title... LE TOYOTA VAN 1985 something-or-other... now before i go on i should fill you all in a bit on the present 'LE Toyota van' situation at that time.

WE ALREADY HAD 3 OF THEM.

yes 3. they look like little footballs on wheels as the engine is under the front seats. all made in the 80's, they run forever, super cheap on gas and my husband just has a thing for them. the 1st one was bought over 2 years ago (also on ebay) and its a 4x4. it has some major rust issues we hope to deal with one day, but until then its a storage unit with a flat tire out back. the 2nd van (we call her 'penny' due to her bronze colour, my friend IF calls her 'little miss sunshine' due to her faulty starter and broken gas gauge...) was bought 2 years ago and is my source of transportation (when she works... a WHOLE other post will be dedicated to penny, god love her!). 3rd van was a recent impulse buy. it was a cargo van - good price, knew we could resell it easily... but just hadn't got around to doing that quite yet.

soooo... you can now imagine me shaking my head upon discovering the recent ebay purchase that afternoon. i clicked on the title of the won item to see our new ride and i can definately say i was NOT prepared for what i saw...
in a monitone voice, "oh my f$%#@!ing god. nooooo waaaay." it had a name. 'FURTHER' it was a 'cargo' LE Toyota van and it was completely covered in hmmmmm... shall we say 'artwork'? some sort of strange space scene with an alien in a spaceship holding a flaming planet/moon thing... i was immeadeately trying to visualize myself driving it around town. it just screamed BURNER! and i am about as far away from being a hippy as you can get!!

so after surprising hubby with a phone call and my knowledge of his latest purchase... ("oooohhhh ya - that. i didn't think we'd win it...") we went and picked it up. turns out the exaust system was in need of a replacement so it was super LOUD. acually set off car alarms while driving down the street! but you could drown out the noise inside with the CD PLAYER! our other vans just had crappy tape decks and shitty speakers, but FURTHER was set up with a sweet deck and big speakers drilled into the ceiling! i was starting to fall in love... it also had a comfy pull out bed, every single map you might need to get to 'Burning Man' every tool/fluid to get yourself out of a sticky mechanical situation, hardhat, shovel, insulation - this baby was hooked up. as soon as possible i went to pick up IF at his swanky downtown apartment. he just about pissed himself laughing when he saw it, and almost choked when he heard the horn...

AAAAA-WOOOO-GAAAA--AAAA-A-WOOO-GAAAA!

we espeacially got a kick out of watching peoples reactions when they looked at us through their rearview mirror... yup, she was a real beauty! we only kept her for 3 months and then sold her to her 'soulmate' (imagine what type of personality the van would have if it were human... and a psytrance DJ - thats who we sold it to). good times with FURTHER.
i defineatly recommend this type of paint 'treatment' if you a.) love attention b.) like scaring old people c.) have a problem with people tagging your car. d.) have trouble finding your car in a parking lot.

i don't recommend this look if a.) a perspective client might catch a glimpse of your ride. b.) you get the occasional case of road-rage and like to lay on your horn c.) you want to do any crossborder shopping.
*d