Murder at the Storage Unit

Newsletter 2023-04-03

It could have been a scene straight out of The Wire or Breaking Bad. We were three dudes with a large amount of cash heading to the sketchiest part of the city to make a deal.

We should have had a gun. Or nunchucks. Even a sharpened stick would have been good. Instead, we were completely unarmed. All we had for protection was the companionship of each other. Never bring friendship to a gunfight. For backup, one of our wives was tracking our location on her phone from two suburbs away. She wouldn't be able to send help in time if things went south, but she could direct the authorities to the right spot to collect our bodies. At least we were about to die doing what we loved: saving some money on a TV.

Three TVs, actually. I don't want to downplay the importance of the cause for which we were potentially about to give our lives. I've become something of a wizard at finding deals on the internet, except when I get scammed out of $200 for a non-existent Xbox. That only happened once, though, and I didn't even die. I only learned one lesson from that fiasco: Whenever possible, make deals in person. The risk of being murdered would go way up, but the risk of losing money would go down. That was a trade-off worth making, which is why I was about to get us all killed.

I had scouted out the location beforehand entirely by accident. I went there to buy a treadmill. If you check any second-hand site, you'll find a plethora of exercise equipment. They're the kind of items people buy when they think they'd like to get healthy and extend their life and sell when they realize they'd rather die young and happy with a few extra pounds. I have no education or expertise in nutrition or workout science, but I have listened to a bunch of podcasts, which is a step down from staying at a Holiday Inn Express last night. After half-listening to the experts, I concluded that, as I bulked and cut to get in shape, it was a good idea to keep my daily step count constant. Unfortunately, it's cold outside, and I was getting dizzy walking circles around my dining room table. My solution was a walking pad, which is a small, slow treadmill you can pace on while doing other things. You might recall that I recently sold my rowing machine, which is one of the best forms of steady state cardio but also very large and loud. A walking pad was the opposite of that. I could use it at night in my bedroom while I played Xbox and my wife Lola cross stitched and watched a show on her phone, which is how most of our nights end up. We spend quality time not with each other, but near each other, which almost counts.

After keeping an eye out for a second-hand walking pad for a few weeks, I spotted the deal of a lifetime. The Facebook Marketplace listing had every red flag in the book. The post didn't show a picture of the actual treadmill, just screen caps of the product from Amazon showing that theirs was exactly half off. They had my attention. I messaged them to ask if it was really brand new in the box. They confirmed that it was. Then I asked if they would knock off another $25. They agreed immediately. I asked how they wanted to be paid. They said cash. Only cash. Oh, and they could meet right away. This was definitely a trap, but there was a chance the bait was real. I grabbed my keys, and, without telling anyone where I was going, set off in search of some savings. Surely this would end well.

The area Google Maps directed me to was interesting to say the least. Like much of Indianapolis, one block had million-dollar homes, and the next was mostly murder shacks. My target destination was definitely on the murder shack side of the street. I ended up in the parking lot of a self-storage business. I messaged the seller on Facebook to ask where he was. He told me to pull around to the back, past the chain link fence and to the loading docks where there weren't any cameras. His phrasing wasn't quite that murdery, but that was the subtext. I followed his directions anyway. Staying alive is good, but saving money is better. I pulled up to the loading docks and waited.

A heavily tattooed guy came out of the building and motioned for me to follow him in. He led me down several cinder block hallways to a large cardboard box. It was the walking pad, new and in the original packaging, exactly as promised. Against all odds, it seemed like this listing was totally legit. Next to the box, there was a long, narrow storage unit full of literally hundreds of brand new TVs. Along with mattresses, those were the core of this guy's business. Everyone sleeps, and everyone watches TV. Not everyone exercises, though, which is why he was trying to dump the last of his fitness equipment and get out of that niche for good.

Naturally, I had questions. Did all these TVs fall off a truck, or was it one of those situations where he bought products that were returned to online retailers? According to him, it was neither. His business model was to wait until after last year's TVs were clearanced out by local big box stores and then swoop in to make a deal with the manager for all the ones that failed to sell. I was in the market for a small smart TV to go on my ten-year-old's desk to hook up to her Xbox. This guy had exactly what I was looking for, but for half of what I would have paid online. I had just enough cash left on me to buy it. I left there with a treadmill, a TV, and my life. I could have come away with two of those three things and been happy.

Before I left, my new sketchy contact gave me his phone number. On the drive home, I racked my brain for who could benefit from this new asset in my life. My friend Peter is the only person I know who's as cheap as me, and he just so happened to be in the market for two TVs. If there was anyone who would risk his life to save 50 percent, it was him. I set up a day and time for us to venture back over there. I also recruited my brother-in-law, Jerry, who knows everything about TVs and makes all of my electronics purchasing decisions for me. This time, however, his powers were curtailed. He couldn't research deals beforehand because my sketchy contact couldn't even tell me what exactly he had in his storage unit. We were flying blind. Our instructions were just to show up and bring cash. Somehow, the seller had managed to add even more red flags than the first time. We went anyway, which is why life insurance for men costs more.

I took five seats out of my van to make room for anything we wanted to buy, and Peter went to the bank for a bunch of cash. As we headed back to the worst part of Indianapolis, it occurred to me that my TV contact could be playing the long con. Like most normal people, I thought of Gollum. The only reason he led Sam and Frodo all the way to Mordor, besides the extra opportunities to steal the ring for himself, was that he had previously been captured by a giant spider on his way in. The spider agreed to spare Gollum's life if Gollum brought back even more people for the spider to eat. I thought it was dumb that Gollum would go back at all, but now here I was doing exactly the same thing. J.R.R. Tolkien doesn't write plot holes; he accurately chronicles real life, which is probably why he sold a trillion more books than me.

I led my posse back to the loading docks behind the self-storage place I was so fortunate to escape once before. My TV contact wasn't there, and the door was locked. Amazingly, the situation had become even more dubious than the first time. Many texts later, he finally came out and unlocked the door. Apparently I had been texting his business partner, who actually ran the joint operation. The head guy wasn't available, though, because he had fallen and broken his arm while climbing a giant pile of mattresses. It's like they say: Live by the memory foam, die by the memory foam. That didn't bode ill at all. We went inside.

Jerry entered the storage unit full of TVs. It was like watching Aladdin in the Cave of Wonders. He said nothing. Carefully, he read the model numbers on every box. You could cut the tension with a knife or whatever other sharp object my TV guy used to stab people. Finally, Jerry nodded. These deals were for real.

We left with three TVs. Peter bought two, and I bought one. Did I need that TV? Absolutely not, but in all of human history, no one has ever actually "needed" a TV of any size. I merely wanted it because it had better stats than one I already had. I didn't recognize its deficiencies until the Super Bowl, when I turned on the game on my dining room TV and living room TV at the same time. Individually, each one looked fine, but played together, I realized that the colors on one looked vastly inferior to the colors on the other. Once I noticed, I couldn't unsee it. I used some of the cash I got from selling my rowing machine a few months back to get a new TV to replace it. That seemed poetic. I was converting a previous failed attempt at exercise directly into something that would keep me more inactive. But now that I had a walking pad, I could watch the new, better TV while moving my feet at an extremely slow rate. Surely I would be ripped in no time.

Even with five of the seats removed, we barely fit the three screens in my minivan. Had Peter opted for 75-in TVs instead of the 65-in ones, we would have been forced to leave one of us behind. It would have been a fair trade off. Friendship is good but TVs are better. We returned home conquering heroes. Not really. None of our wives cared at all, and mine kept asking me why I thought it was a good idea to buy yet another TV. She'll never understand guy logic. If you want a TV in the Indianapolis area, I can hook you up with a contact who has neglected to murder me not once but twice. I can't imagine a more glowing review than that.

Anyway, that's all I've got for now. Catch you next time.

James