(Unknown Parts Counter Guy is our new series written by an actual parts counter guy at a large chain auto parts store. He’s writing anonymously so his ass doesn’t get fired. If you missed our first installment last week, click here to read it. This week’s pretty much reflects the weirdness these guys are faced with on a day-to-day basis.)

During the last couple weeks of January, most of the Midwest was enveloped in the frozen hell that was the “polar vortex”. Temperatures dropped to well below zero and ice and snow battered us pretty hard. In the store, we had sold out of every can of fuel antifreeze, normal antifreeze, de-icer, windshield wash and diesel anti-gel we had. We were actually rationing the de-icer as if it was the Great Depression again. One can per frozen customer per week. Luckily, most of our work during this time was the industrial side of the house as most of our normal retail customers were ANYWHERE but outside fixing things.

Let’s set the scene: it’s nearing sunset and we have a slow but steady stream of customers in the store. The store manager, who we’ll call, “the store manager”, one Mid-level and our industrial guy are all up front on the counter with me when we hear a particularly curious set of noises. First, a sliding noise followed by a low “thump” behind the building, shortly followed by spinning tires and what sounds like a Chrysler V6 trying to free itself of the chassis it is in. Since I had finished a sale, I went to see what happened.

I walked out of the rear-side door and came face-to-face with a Dodge Dynasty that had seen one hell of a life high-centering situation on the curb. The fender was less than half an inch from the structure of the building. How the hell he didn’t hit it is beyond me. The driver was trying to free the car, but that simply was not going to happen with the front wheels almost completely off the dirt…he had just enough tire touching to get them smoking when he spun them. The snow and ice showed no signs of locked brakes and his passenger door was open.

Picture now: Behind the store is a grass median that puts about ten yards between the building and the CSX rail line. Dead-square in the middle of the grass is a woman with her pants completely down, in -4* weather, taking a leak. No, this isn’t the weirdest day at work ever. My reaction came instinctively: “What the F! are you doing?!”

Her reply, deadpan: “I couldn’t hold it anymore.”

Well then, never mind the big building with two bathrooms that isn’t in the freakin’ cold, lady.

I went to focus my attention to the driver…and he’s walking up the damn road to a different parts store! What the hell?? I started screaming at him about the car and he either didn’t hear me or ignored me. The police and tow truck arrived shortly thereafter. Now that the managers had seen this and had been told about the impromptu Code Yellow, everyone was interested in exactly what the hell brought this scene on.

The story we got is that the Dynasty’s brakes went out and he ditched the car, which makes no sense as the driver would’ve had to have made a 90-degree left turn from a 45-mph road on ice, without hitting two Ford Ranger delivery trucks and my hot rod while miraculously stuffing the car as close to the building as possible without actually hitting the building. I can assume many things, but given the passenger’s willingness to bare ass in broad daylight to relieve herself in public, I’m gonna assume that she, if not the both of them, were drunk. He returned about twenty minutes after he left with everything needed to rebuild the rear wheel cylinders and the tried to pull the jack out of the car when the police officers stopped him. The car was towed away within an hour and I’m not completely sure if the police arrested them or if they were just taken back to the special ward of the home for the mentally disabled.

Either way, I hope the cop that took her home was kind enough to turn on the defroster.