Onto the SPOTD matters, we hit paydirt with one day in Lakewood, Colorado recently…

SPOTD Candidate #1 was a young male, about 28yo, who was getting his oil changed at Walmart at the same time as us. The people working there asked him to sign a form that gave them immunity from the charge that they had caused engine damage since he had brought it in without any oil in it. This is a standard form they have, so it must be a reasonably common issue, but it’s still the first time we’ve seen it happen.

The young man agreed to sign the form and went on to tell the Walmart employee that when he’d bought the car, he had noticed that no oil ever stayed in it, and it was burning lots of oil. This, he felt, was not a good thing and he went to see the dealer who sold it to him. The dealer then told him that the car was actually designed to burn through the oil, and that when the car ran out of oil, it was time to go to get an oil change. The young man had believed him - indeed, still did believe that story - and so every time he heard a pinging/clunking noise in his engine, went to get his oil changed. Mind you, since there was nothing in it to lubricate the pistons, he was really changing to oil from oxygen.

SPOTD Candidate #2 was Stephanie, the female receptionist at the bodyshop in Lakewood where we went to get a quote (aka “estimate”) for the repairs. She heard the accent and realised we were from somewhere else, so she asked and we explained we were from Australia.

Stephanie: “Wow, that’s a long way from home.”

Di: “Yeah, about 14 hours flying time.”

Stephanie: “Forty hours?!?”

Di: “No, fourteen.”

Stephanie: “Forty eight?”

Trav: “Fourteen. One Four. Fourteen.”

Stephanie: “Oh.”

She then turned to look at a map on the wall and tried to locate Australia on it. After about 20 seconds of careful scrutiny, she turned back to us with a puzzled look.

Stephanie: “I can’t see it there on the map.”

Trav: “Can’t see what?”

Stephanie: “Australia.”

Trav (incredulous): “That’s a bloody map of the United States!”

Yes, she was honestly looking at a map of the 50 states of the USA, plus the little bit of Canada above and little bit of Mexico below and trying to figure out where Australia was on it.

Stephanie (blissfully stupid): “Oh, but I thought it might be off the coast or something.”

Di: “It’s fourteen hours to fly there. It takes 6 hours just to fly from Los Angeles to New York.”

Stephanie: “Oh. So, like, you’ve got koala bears down there? I always wanted a koala bear. They’re so cute.”

Di: “Actually, they bite and scratch and urinate on you if you try to pick them up.”

Stephanie: “Oh. So, what other animals do you have up there?”

Trav: “No, we’re down there. You’re up here.”

A mystified look was Stephanie’s response. I ended up having to get a globe shaped object and try to explain that the USA was up here (pointing to the globe) and that Australia was all the way over down here (pointing to another place on the globe).

Stephanie: “I thought you were higher than here on the globe.”

Di: “Why do you think we’re called ‘Down Under’?”

Stephanie: “I didn’t know. So, what other animals do you have down there?”

Trav: “Uh, kangaroo…”

Stephanie: “Oh yeah. Are they, like, in a zoo?”

At that point, I looked at Di in despair and she gave me the same look back. We were stunned to find someone so completely clueless, and we’d been getting more and more frustrated making this small talk while the guy got ready to look at the van. Stephanie mistook our looks of depair to be looks of blankness at the term “zoo”.

Stephanie: “You know, a zoo. Like, where they have animals. Do you have a zoo up there?”

Trav: “Australia is the same land area as the entire United States. Yes, we have a zoo.”

At that point, the guy was ready to go out and have a look, so we quickly followed him and left Stephanie in her ignorant state. Alas, as we looked at the van, we met SPOTD Candidate #3.

We were standing there, discussing the damage with the bodyshop manager and then, all of a sudden, a big dorky guy was there as well, cradling a large soft drink cup and looking at the van as well. As soon as he spoke, we realised he had a severe stutter. For the sake of typing brevity, I am going to leave that bit out in the following exchange.

SPOTD 3: “Hey, can I have your roof?”

Di: “What?”

SPOTD 3: “Can I have your roof?”

Trav: “What the hell are you talking about?”

SPOTD 3: “The roof of your van. I’ll swap you for a bit of plywood.”

Trav: “Why do you want the roof?”

SPOTD 3: “My van could use the roof. See, there’s my van over there.”

There sat a crap old rust-bucket recognisable as another Ford Econoline, though not a conversion van. That was why he wanted to put a different roof on it - ours was a high roof and his was not.

Trav (sarcastic): “A bit of plywood? Sure. Why not, with such an offer?”

SPOTD 3: “Really?”

Trav: “No.”

SPOTD 3: “Nice van though. Where did you buy it? Australia?”

Trav (sarcastic): “Yes. We bought it in Australia and drove it here.”

At this point, Di and I were not sure where to go - back into the office with Stephanie or out here with this dork. We still did not know where he came from, so we assumed he worked nearby since it was not really a pedestrian area. It turned out he worked at the printer’s next door, and he went back in there when Di and I went back to the bodyshop office.

A few minutes later, he burst into the bodyshop office singing, at the top of his lungs, “Tie Me Kangaroo Down Sport” and making the appropriate kangaroo leaping movements around Di. Of course, with a severe stutter, singing was not an intelligent activity anyway, and it was coming out as :

SPOTD 3: “T-t-t-tie me k-k-k-kangar-r-r-oo up s-s-s-s-s-port”

I was up the back with the manager at the time but came forward to rescue Di who was sitting on the customer sofa with a totally flabbergasted look on her face. I was not sure if she was going to leave right then and there in the face of such stupidity, but if she was, we were going together!

By the time I got to the front, he was in the second verse (which he had completely wrong anyway) and as soon as he’d finished, he left again and went back to the printer’s. As soon as the quote rolled out of the printer, I spoke quietly to Di and we planned our run to the van so that we’d not see him again. Yes, we actually did physically run to get out of there, so worried were we by the high levels of stupidity (more dangerous than radiation).

So, there you have it. Three more reasons to not be in Denver…

Categories: Travel, Odyssey 2001, SPOTD