A bag of bugles, a bolt, a washer, and a check for $1370

Originally posted April 21, 2012

This is a Magic card story. A lot of the card-specific details have been left out to make it more accessible. (If you’re a Magic player, you’re probably smart enough to fill in those details on your own anyway, but feel free to ask me anything you’re curious about.)

It was September 2004. I was 19 years old, playing in lots of Magic tournaments and doing better than I ever expected to – but not well enough to have a spot in an invite-only tournament with a high prize payout in Columbus later that year. At the time, that was the only thing I wanted, and I wanted it pretty bad. There was one more chance to win an invite, and it was a qualifier event in High Point, North Carolina. At this point in time, thanks to (what I thought were) strong showings in the national championship in Kansas City in June and another large open tournament in Orlando in July, I had this crazy illusion that I was head and shoulders above every other card player on the east coast, and that I was pretty much a shoe-in to win the event as long as I actually showed up.

The problem was actually getting to North Carolina.

I was 19 and still not a very experienced driver in the eyes of basically everyone but myself, so there was pretty much no chance that my parents would let me use their car for a trip from Maryland to North Carolina. The furthest I’d ever driven before that was a 2 hour trip to Richmond, and even then my parents were hesitant to let me drive. Aside from my 15-year-old friend Dylan, I didn’t know anyone else who was willing to go (who could blame them? why would they want to go when it’s pretty obvious that they’d just lose to me?), so I needed a plan to get to North Carolina. Fortunately, I had a brilliant one.

I would just lie to my parents.

Dylan (who wanted to come with me to NC), lived in Virginia, so I cooked up a scheme where I would tell my parents I was going to northern Virginia and staying with Dylan all weekend, so we could go to a tournament. (It was only implied that I would actually be in Virginia all weekend, which wasn’t true.) What I would really be doing was picking Dylan up from Virginia at around 9PM, driving to meet our friend John Abueg (who I had just met two months before, and was nice enough to let us stay at his apartment over the weekend) in North Carolina, staying the night, and then waking up and driving over to the event.

Unluckily for me, I planned the trip very poorly, and underestimated the amount of time it would take to travel to each destination. I figured it would take 30 minutes to get to Dylan’s house, and it took an hour. I estimated 5 hours from Dylan’s to John’s, and it was actually six and a half. I thought John lived pretty close to the event site in High Point, and he actually lived an hour away. On top of all this I left a lot later than I planned to, Dylan took a long time getting his stuff together for the trip, and I got stopped for speeding in Virginia, all of which slowed the trip down. What this meant was that instead of getting to John’s apartment at 2AM and getting 7 hours of sleep before we had to leave for the event like I planned, our arrival time was more like 7AM and I was lucky to get an hour or so of napping before we had to leave.

John was nice enough not to mind us waking him up at 7AM on Saturday morning to let us in and get a quick nap in, but just as I was about to doze off on his couch, he showed me a check for $1370.

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A NOT-SO-BRIEF ASIDE ABOUT JOHN ABUEG

He’s one of the nicest guys I’ve ever met in my life.

It was crazy enough that he was letting us stay with him after just having met him a couple months ago and that he let us into his apartment with a smile after we woke him up early on a Saturday. I was surprised he was even talking to me at all given the circumstances under which we met.

It was July 2004. After a prizeless-but-satisfying showing at the national championship in June, I decided it was time for me to start playing in larger scale events, so I made plans to go to a huge open tournament in Orlando with my friends Hal, Rich, and Steve. Hal was going to drive, so I got the OK from my parents to go. Once I got to Hal’s house in Virginia, he asked me if I was comfortable driving and I said yes, so I figured I would just be taking over some shifts in case Hal got tired of driving. I was fine with that.

Before we left northern Virginia, Hal stopped to pick up Dylan (the same Dylan who’s coming with me to NC in the main storyline). This was pretty disappointing because I didn’t realize it was going to be a 5-man car trip. We were all pretty fat, so whoever got stuck in that back seat was going to be absolutely miserable for 14 hours. Hal said not to worry, because we’ll be changing cars once we got to North Carolina, so it’ll only be unbearable for around 5 hours.

When we got to North Carolina, Hal left his car with his friend John Abueg, who was going to let him use his car for the rest of the trip. It wasn’t a van, and was actually a lot smaller than Hal’s car, so I wondered how that would make things any better. I was then informed that Hal was going to finish the trip with his other friends from NC who were driving down, and that the rest of us (Rich, Steve, Dylan and I) were going to take John’s car to Orlando with the other three. I was the only person in that four who actually had a driver’s license, so that means I was stuck driving a complete stranger’s car from North Carolina to Orlando.

Wonderful. At that point I would have gladly taken a 5-man fat festival for the rest of the way.

Despite being upset that Hal abandoned us (and was too scared to let me drive his car but was perfectly OK with letting me drive the car of someone I just met), I managed to get us to downtown Orlando pretty safely. Unfortunately, I got lost once we were there, and had to stop and buy a map. Some of the children in the car wanted to make it to the event site by 6 to play in some optional preliminary events, and getting lost slowed us down, so I was rushing to get to the event site: driving a little faster than I usually do, looking for shortcuts, etc. We were one turn away from the hotel that the event was being held at, and I was about to get trapped at a red light, so I decided to take a shortcut through a parking lot. I took a right turn into the parking lot and…

I hit another car. It was a truck who was backing out of a parking space.

I was mortified. I damaged two complete strangers’ cars.

On the bright side, nobody was hurt. The collision was actually very small. The damage to John’s car was some very light damage to the bumper, and the damage to the truck was only a couple dents on its right side.

The driver of the truck was a tall, muscular fireman named Hobie. He was upset, but also polite and understanding, since I was very apologetic (not to mention incredibly intimidated). We explained the situation to him: this was our friend’s car and we don’t have any clue what kind of insurance this would be covered under, etc. We also didn’t want anybody’s rates to go up, so we asked if we could settle it with cash, since the damage was very light. Hobie called his “friend who was an auto body expert” and got a quick phone estimate of $650 for his truck (and $500 for John’s bumper), so he would settle for $650.

I, of course, did not have $650 or anything close to it, but I rather liked the idea of covering up my mistake with $1150, so I figured if I could get $650 now and $500 later, I could make everything go away. I called Hal (who was already at the hotel), explained the situation, and asked him if I could borrow $650 to pay for it. He said no (he wouldn’t even let me drive his car to Orlando, what chance did I have of borrowing $650?), but that he might be able to find someone else who would be willing to let me borrow it. I explain that to Hobie and he comes with us to the event site to watch me try and bum $650 from someone.

It didn’t go over well. There wasn’t anyone at the event who knew me well enough to lend me $650. I talked it over with Hal and decided that I would just have to bite the bullet, call the police and report the collision, and get the insurance companies involved. Hal dialed John so I could explain the situation to him, and I did just that, in a very nervous, sheepish tone. He softened the blow by being very kind and understanding, and said to just let him know how it goes. After that, Hobie and Dylan and I went back to the accident scene to wait for the police to come.

An officer came. We explained the accident to him. He reviewed the damage on the cars.

Then he decided Hobie was at fault.

Because of my inexperience, I automatically assumed the collision was my fault. (After all, I did turn into that parking lot pretty quickly.) The officer stated that it was Hobie’s responsibility to make sure it was clear before backing out. I certainly wasn’t going to argue with that.

I was completely ecstatic on the inside. Hobie was visibly upset and argued with the officer, but the decision stood. After all the necessary information was collected, Hobie grumbled “I’ll see your friend in court” and stormed off. Dylan and I went back to the site, found Hal and told him what happened, and then we called John with the good news. Hal said that it was the luckiest thing he’d ever seen happen to anyone.

The rest of the event goes down pretty smoothly. I finish high enough to falsely inflate my ego, but not high enough to actually win anything, and Hal drives John’s car the whole way back to NC make sure nothing else happens. John saw the damage on his car and was totally unfazed.

That’s why I have such high praise for John. I never met anyone who would be so nice to me after I introduced myself to them by crashing their car.

end aside

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The check was for the damage to his bumper that I caused a couple months ago. Since John was in the military and didn’t use his car much (which was why he let Hal borrow it in the first place), he decided not to worry about the damage to his bumper and just pocket the cash. As far as he was concerned, I earned him $1370. No wonder he was so nice to me.

I got a terrible 1-hour nap on John’s couch and then left with Dylan for the event in High Point. In another planning blunder, I mistake the start time for the event to be 1 hour earlier than what it actually was, which was upsetting because I was extremely tired after a harrowing trip down, and would have enjoyed an extra hour of nap time. I got over it though, because the event was starting soon, and I was destined to win.

Well, I didn’t win. I won the first 3 rounds and then played against Dylan in the fourth round, and he crushed me. He went on to lose in the next two rounds, while I split the next two with a win and a loss. If you’re unfamiliar with these events, they work like this: if you take two losses, you’re unable to win first prize, so Dylan and I were both out of contention for first prize (the invite to the big money event in Columbus). This was a blow to my gigantic ego.

At this point, I called my mom and told her how upset I was about losing, and also decided to just tell her that I got a speeding ticket. (Thank goodness I got it in Virginia, since she still thought that’s where I was.) She was disappointed, but not angry. I got off the phone with her, and then bought a bag of Bugles from the vending machine they had at the event site.

Then, something strange happened.

I ate most of the Bugles, poured the last two and the crumbs into my mouth, bit down, and almost broke my tooth. One of the bugles was extremely hard and solid and tasted nasty. I spit it into my hand, only to find that it wasn’t a Bugle at all; it was a bolt and a washer. There was a bolt and a washer in my sealed bag of Bugles.

I instantly called my mom back and told her what happened. She said that she’d call my sister and ask her what to do, since my sister was (and still is) an expert when it comes to complaining to customer service and getting free stuff. I was excited about a potential settlement large enough to offset the emotional damage of losing a card tournament as well as the financial damage of getting a speeding ticket. (Oh yeah, and the potential physical damage of chomping down on a bolt.) I made sure to save the empty bag, the bolt, and the washer.

Dylan and I both end up with 3 losses each in the event (out of 8 rounds), which is an abysmal showing. We drove back to John’s apartment dejected, got a proper night’s sleep, and went home that Sunday morning.

That next Monday, after giving my sister the name of the company on the bag, she found their customer service number and gave it to my mom, who called and explained what happened. They said to send them the bag, the bolt, and the washer, as well as our contact info, and they would send us a nice compensation package, but they also wanted the location of the vending machine I bought it from.

I hesitantly told my mom the name of the store, as well as the location: High Point, North Carolina.

I almost got away with it. My cover got blown by a stupid bag of bugles.

This time, my parents were both angry AND disappointed. I explained that I thought there was no way they would let me drive to North Carolina otherwise, and my mom countered with “actually, if you had just asked me, I would have let you go.” Hearing her say that made me feel even worse.

They both got over it pretty quickly though. I don’t remember them even doing anything about it aside from spending a few hours being disappointed in me. Everything went back to normal after that.

A few weeks later, we got some mail from the Bugles people.

They sent us 8 more bags of Bugles.

 

Thank you for reading!