It has been said that it is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.
It has also been said, “There is love of course. And then there’s life, its enemy.”

I find the latter to be more true at this point of my life.

Last week, I wrote a glowing post about how I was the proud new owner of a 1973 Airstream and that how my dreams were finally coming true and that I could stop whining and get busy becoming the gypsy hipster I always knew I was meant to be. And not a word of that was a lie. I really did believe that the acquisition of a rusty old RV was going to be one of the more exciting moments of my young adult life. The wold had a sheen to it. The daily poop of life was still hitting the fan, but it didn’t seem to matter as much. I was getting an airstream. Even moments when the dogs ate all of Eloise’s baby food, the toilet backed up or I spent an hour cleaning the floor only to have it become instantly dirty again, it was water off my back.  Chris would tell me, “Well, at  least you have an airstream”, and I would smile sweetly, knowing he was right.

If only he was…

I found this Airstream on Craigslist, where I search from time to for Airstreams for sale in the local area. When I saw that it was in a price range that we could afford and it seemed to have all of its parts in working order, I got really excited and immediately called Chris. I do this periodically, so he wasn’t surprised to hear me say that I had found one I wanted, but hearing the price (and just trying to shut me up) he gave me permission to call the telephone number listed on the Craigslist posting and inquire some more details. I did, and spent the next hour talking to a nice gentleman named Robert Lynch, who lived in a tiny town in Georgia right outside of Chattanooga. He chatted me up about the Airstream, its condition, and another website where  I could see more pictures of the item for sale and a more detailed description of it. (That is where I got all of the pictures I posted). I hung up the phone, feeling well informed about the Airstream and certain that is was supposed to be mine.

After pestering Chris for a few days, he finally agreed to let me buy it, and I called Robert to tell him the happy news. I spent another hour talking to him about it, its condition, the towability of it, getting the bill of sale notarized and all of that stuff. I told him that I would send him a $150 cashier’s check in the mail to hold it for me, and would bring the rest of the money in cash with me when I went to pick it up on Saturday (this was Tuesday). The deal was done. I hung up the phone and did a happy dance. Then I immediately made my joy viral by posting on facebook that I had just purchased an Airstream, so that people could see that I am not just a lame-o housewife, but a real hipster.

I got up the next morning early and was the first person at the post office when it opened. I sent my $150 cashier’s check to Robert Lynch and felt so happy I could cry. Then I when home and wrote a blog post about my joy. I felt invincible. I felt like a real winner for the first time since I had given birth (I really wish I were kidding right now, but sadly I am not). Now all I had to do was count down the days until Saturday. Chris and I did some research about towing this RV and we decided his Nissan Pathfinder may or may not be able to handle towing it. We didn’t think it would be a good idea to drive all the way to South-of-Chattanooga, GA and find out that it couldn’t do the job, so we decided to wait until we could use a friend’s diesel van to tow it. He couldn’t do Saturday, so we made plans for later on. I called Robert and told him that we couldn’t come on Saturday, but we would be there as soon as humanly possible to pick up my aluminum dream come true. He seemed a little disappointed, but he told me he had received my deposit and he would hold it for me until I could come and get it. We then shot the bull, and he told me about his granddad (the late Charlie Louvin), his house he was building, and his budding music career. I felt like I had made a friend.

So finally, we pick a date with our friend and his diesel van and make plans to go get the Airstream. We decided to go on Monday (a week and two days after the Saturday we originally said we would come) and I called Robert on Tuesday to tell him we were coming . We chatted and talked about the hitch ball size, what kind of brake light adapters we needed, etc. He even told me exactly how to get to his house, with an alternate address in case the mailing address didn’t show up on GPS. Everything was good to go. I asked off of work. The Monday to end all Mondays finally arrived and my excitement was at a fevered pitch. I wanted to do toe-touches.  I made a batch of cookies and a batch of muffins because I was so excited that I couldn’t think of how else to occupy my time, and Monday morning we packed up the diesel van- our friend the driver and his wife, Chris, me, and the Wheeze. I called our friend Robert (who didn’t answer his phone) and left a message saying we were on the way and to expect us around lunchtime. We were on the way.

After about an hour and a half, things are going smoothly and we made it past Huntsville. I got a phone call from my boss who had a question about something. I talked to him for a little bit, and then hung up my phone. I saw I had a new voicemail. I listened to the voicemail. I immediately recognized the voice as Robert’s, and I was expecting him to tell me that he will be expecting us. But that is not at all what he said.

His message to me was something like this..
“Hello, um this is Robert Lynch. I got your message about the Airstream, but I don’t know why you are coming up here. I hadn’t heard form you in two weeks and I didn’t think you were coming. And so we have decided not to sell it anymore”.

Wha?

I think I gasped really loudly (I don’t remember) because when I looked up, everyone in the car was staring at me. I needed a minute to process what I had just heard.

Wha??

I finally got it together enough to repeat what I had heard and immediately we pulled the van into a gas station parking lot. I immediately dialed Robert’s number again. No answer. I left a message that said something to the effect of “Robert, this is Laura. I am super-duper confused because I talked to you Tuesday and told you I was coming and you were fine with that. We are already on our way and we need to know what to do.” I waited in disbelief. Everyone in the car was helping me retrace my steps to make sure I wasn’t missing an important detail. We spoke Tuesday. He knew we were coming Monday. He said he got the deposit? What is going on? After about ten minutes, I called him again, and left the following message: “Robert, this is Laura again. We are sitting in a gas station parking lot and we need to know what to do. PLEASE call me back”.

It was around this moment that my friend Shelly mentioned that we may have been scammed. Honestly, that hadn’t occurred to me before then. I mean, this guy had chatted me up like his long lost cousin. I knew about his family, his house, his shih-tzu /yorkie mix puppies he had for sale (“shorkies” as he informed me) , his music career, blah blah blah. What do you mean he may have scammed me? It can’t be true! Hurt and confused, I tried to call him again. And again. And again. No answer. Robert was nowhere to be found. My airstream was nowhere to be found. I, however, was located in a gas station parking lot somewhere east of Huntsville, scattered among my broken dreams. Chris tried calling him. No answer. Everyone else in the car tried too. No answer. We thought maybe he was on to us, so we had Chris’s dad call him from a different area code. No answer. After about an hour, I decided that there was no point in sitting in the gas station parking lot any more. We might as well head home, and maybe some sense could be made of this. As we pulled away and headed back west, away from South-of-Chattanooga, GA, I cried a little. How could I be so stupid? How could I have fallen for this? I consider myself to be a savvy kind of person, not a dip-stick who falls for internet scams. Actually I didn’t care about the $150 that we lost. I just really, really, really wanted an airstream. I had my heart set on it.

So we made it back to Florence and Chris and I spent the rest of the day moping in bed and watching episodes of The Office to ease the pain. To add insult to injury, I then had to tell everyone (internet and otherwise) that I didn’t come home with an Airstream because I had gotten scammed. It was a whole day of reminders that I wasn’t and will never be as cool as I hoped. The world had lost that sheen of hipster-gypsy that had fueled my euphoria for the past week. I am, after all, just a housewife.

Later that night, I was thinking again about how crappy Robert Lynch was to me, and I decided to call him one more time. Oddly enough, he answered. I wasn’t expecting him to do so, so I hardly knew what to say to him. The only thing I could get out was “What happened today??” He then proceeded to explain to me that his landlord was giving him grief for having the trailer in the first place because it violated his lease agreement. He told him that he had sold it to me and that I was going to pick it up on Saturday. When Saturday came and went and I hadn’t come for the trailer, the landlord became harder to deal with. Robert had been a few days late on his payment this month because he was waiting on the money from me, so the landlord was threatening to evict him and the shorkies. In the meantime, a lot of people had been calling about the Airstream and on Sunday night (the night before I was supposed to come pick it up) a guy had driven from Birmingham with cash in his hand and had purchased it right there on the spot from under me.

Wha?

His story took at least 20 minutes to tell me, and the whole time I am thinking any of this information would have been good to know yesterday or even this morning. And you couldn’t wait one more day to sell it?? But instead, I heard myself saying “Well, thanks so much for answering the phone. We really thought you scammed us”. He said that he had put the cashier’s check deposit in the mail  that day (Monday) and that we should get it soon. I was pissed, but I ended the conversation with, “Well okay, take it easy and good luck to you”.

Good luck to you in your efforts to steal money and crush the dreams of more honest people.

It is Saturday, and we have received no refund check from Robert Lynch. I doubt we shall ever hear from him again. But like I said before, the money doesn’t really matter. I mean, yes, we want it back, and we certainly don’t have an extra $150 to just throw away, but that isn’t the worst part. Robert Lynch didn’t just steal my money. He stole the vision I had for a happier life. He said, “I know you think you are going to be someone special by purchasing this Airstream, but I am here to remind you that you are just as boring as you always feared. That will be $150, please”. Actually, that wasn’t Robert Lynch speaking. Robert Lynch is just a guy who found a quick and easy way to skip out on a honest day’s work. That voice of discontent was Satan himself.

He made me believe that if I had an Airstream, I could be who I wanted to be. It sounds ridiculous, and I am kinda embarrassed to even type this, but that happens to all of us in all kinds of situations every day. It’s a mad-lib of destruction. If only I had (an object) then I wouldn’t have to worry about being so (adjective). If only I had more money then I wouldn’t have to worry about being so unfashionable. If only I had new running shoes then I wouldn’t have to worry about being so slow. If only I had a master’s degree then I wouldn’t have to worry about being so unaccomplished. And the list goes on and on- big boobs-unsexy, a child-unloved, more friends- lonely, more jokes- unlikeable…

If only I had an Airstream then I wouldn’t have to worry about being so boring.

Not true, Robert Lynch, not true.

Now don’t assume me to be more mature than I really am. I am still pissed. And I still want my money back. And I still really really want an Airstream. Hopefully one day I will own one. But I was able to see a direct look at the ugly mad-lib that was fueling my thoughts and actions, and maybe seeing it can help me move above it, or past it. I don’t want people to think I am boring. That is the worst thing someone could say about me. But going out and buying stuff to keep from being seen as boring is not going to fix it. Never will.

Losing something I loved to learn more about how I fit into this world and why I act the way I do sometimes is an important lesson. And if the day comes that I do actually own one, it will be for reasons other than  to fill a void inside of myself. I will stop bastardizing things I love. My evil mad-lib will wither into a simple statement. Laura likes her airstream. Period.

So and So there is love, of course, and then there’s life, its enemy. Make sure you aren’t being scammed into confusing the two. That lesson is worth at least $150.