The Golden Helmet Awards 2005

Hey, here's an idea, don't watch really sad music videos when trying to type something comedic. I just finished viewing Simple Plan's 'Untitled', and people die. Looks like I'm going to have to track down some Beastie Boys... hold on... alright, I'm going to try 'Bad Day' by Daniel Powter, great, their throwing in some hurricane footage before. Yup, fantastic. I mean why can't people just be happy? Oh, and now 'the video I requested isn't available'. Super. So I killed the internet. Sorry everyone, but it's dead, thanks to me.

Despite thoughts of suicide after the sadness internet has brought me, I'll trudge on and continue with my critique of society...

The stage has been set, the red carpet, well is a black rubber mat... wait, it just needs to be flipped over, and the parking lot, is um, going to make a lot of insurance companies very upset, that's right, from Edmonton it's the 2005 GOLDEN HELMET AWARDS!

While most award shows, um, nevermind, it's actually just like the real ones and rewards stupidity, but in this version, I'm going to focus on drivers that make the roads just a little more special for everyone, you know the ones, you see them everyday, out on the streets, in the parking lots, and facing the wrong way in drivethroughs... I'm one of the people that give them cars. Woohoo.

First up: trailer hook-up. Yes, we rent trailers, for an extra FIVE DOLLARS you can get a cargo van and save gas and wear and tear on your car, but there are the devoted few who still rent the stupid things. If you think that the cars we rent might be slightly mistreated, the trailers are the mother of all abuses. Sometimes there's lights, maybe even a hitch... very very bad. Anyway this year's Golden Helmet goes to an individual who asked us to pull the trailer out of the compound for him and hook it up to his SUV because he didn't want to drive up to it because the back roads were muddy. Congratulations, and good luck with that.

Next we have the 'questionable vitamins' in the car: This was a close one, between a Grand Prix covered in pot and cat hair, to the point where we gutted the little guy and left it in pieces around administration, the mobile meth lab built into the back of one of our Cube vans which was then driven to BC, but the winner of this one has to be the smart feller who left several grand in cash, and enough e and coke to hold a street value of at least five grand, but what really secured the award for him was when he called to get it back.

Now the ever-popular, I'm a crazy cheapskate award. While we have people come in all the time with coupons from the late seventies come in and try to use them, the real winner here was someone who actually called and yelled at us to return the dime he left in his car when he dropped it off. That's right, he wanted his ten cents back, and expected us to deliver it.

Businesses are dumb, and they rent cars. Now we have the stupidest company rental: this one is incomprable. A welding company rented a 15 passenger, which I brought to them, and got the trypical 'that's a pretty big truck for such a little girl'... thanks Jerkface, but the 15 would not be safe, it would later hit a deer, a big one, so we tried to help out and give them another, and about ten minutes before close a week after one member of the company brought back the 15 and told us it no longer worked and that they'd need a new one. The problem was it wouldn't go into park, only neutral with the E-brake. Me, being the car-guru I am stepped outside to check on it and see what was really wrong. It became obvious upon seeing the vehicle covered in about two inches of mud at any point. Popping the hood revealed that it no longer had an air cleaner, or a filter, just mud. Lots of mud. I laughed, then locked the doors.

Special Budget employees: this one shall remain anonymous, but it wasn't me. Two young gents came in and wanted a convertable, despite the sub-zero temperatures. The renter tried to show them how to drop the top, but since it was frozen shut, tore out all the machinery and totalled the car. So he did it to another Beetle, and finally gave the two guys a brand new Dodge Magnum. I shake my head at thee.

I could go on, as you can imagine, there are plenty of stupid people, but I'm tired, and starting to have trouble forming coherent sentences. This should hold you for now. So come to Budget, and you too may be the proud new owner of a GOLDEN HELMET 2006.