Bad customers

Oh no!

I had a bad feeling.

A very bad feeling!

They were not gonna like it!

From the very first moment, when the man laid his cold gaze onto my work, I felt an icy chill wash over my back. For a second his eyes roamed the organized chaos of my little shop and then settled onto me. I felt pierced like an insect.

“You are not serious, are you?”

Was that a rhetorical question? But I was too nervous to come up with a proper answer.

“Why not?” I asked back lamely.

“Why not!” he sneered. “Are you stupid? Or do you think I’m stupid? Maybe you think, we all are stupid?!”

Angrily he gestured toward the family behind him, a wife and two Teenagers, who all bore an unreadable expression on their faces.

“What seems to be the problem?” I asked as calmly as possible.

“What seems to be the problem!” he aped me again. “What is that!?”

His finger stabbed accusingly towards my masterpiece, where I had poured all my heart into.

“It’s what you ordered: a family bike for all the four of you.” I answered simply.

I tried to keep my voice steady, but I’m not sure I succeeded.

“Are you kidding me?” the wife now joined in the conversation. “That’s, like, a rocket on wheels, or some weird experimental new age shit, but not a family bike. Never!”

“It’s a velomobile.” I replied somewhat offended, but before I could elaborate, both the woman and her husband attacked me with renewed vigour, and their children happily joined in.

“That’s not what I ordered! I ordered...”

“See? That’s no family bike! Told you so!”

“It looks weird!”

“It’s ridiculous!”

“I’ll never be seen with such monstrosity!”

“Are we seriously paying for something like this?!”

Similar assaults bombarded me for several minutes, before I could make myself heard again.

“Please! If I can explain, I seriously had your best interests in mind when I built this quadracycle.”

“A what?” interrupted the daughter.

“A quadracycle. It’s a bike on four wheels.” I explained patiently.

“Look, I built four seats, every one with pedals. It’s a recumbent cycle, which is much more comfortable than the usual upright cycling position. It has double electric assist, with four 250 Watt mid-engines for a slow and cozy ride and four 3500 Watt hub-motors in every wheel for fast drive of up to 60 miles per hour. They are also great for recuperation. The aerodynamic fairing is for weather protection and reduced air drag. On top are solar panels with 1650 watt peak for range extension, fat tires with automatic inflation or deflation for off-road capability. It has full air suspension for a smoother ride, a built-in tent for camping…”

But they didn’t listen.

“Look!” repeated the father, a rather stocky built guy with a red face. “If I wanted an offroad-vehicle I would’ve said so. Did I order off road-capability?”

“No.” I mumbled. “But you never…”

“Aha!” he interrupted without listening. “And what did you build in?”

“There may be a situation when you need it.” I answered getting desperate, but again nobody listened to me.

“And if I want a vehicle to drive with my family as fast as 60 miles per hour on the road, don’t you think I’d rather buy a car?”

“But a car consumes much more energy!” I interjected.

“Do we look like we care?” boomed his wife, a matron with far too much weight on her - like her children.

“We wanted a nice and cozy family bike for short trips to the park or along the river, not an all-terrain vehicle into the wild. We wouldn’t mind the electric assist, but your motors are ridiculously overpowered. We don’t want a racing car and we certainly don’t want some eco-shit like solar panels on our vehicle. Look at them! They are just terrible!”

“But you’ll save a lot of money on energy costs!” I now tried to appeal to their greed.

“What good are cost savings, when we can’t ride in this ugly piece of shit!” she nearly screamed. “Just look at this monstrosity! How can I ever show my face in public after being seen in this?!”

For a moment I was speechless.

“Don’t bother,” the man coldly said. “Our tinkerer here just went overboard and used my order as an excuse to build his own dream, a mirage, a fata morgana, that nobody wants but he himself.”

“Really? Well, I think it’s very egoistic of you to pretend to build something for US, when it’s just for YOU.” snarled the wife.

I went numb. Like an icy knife these callous, ignorant words cut deeply into my very soul, which I had poured with all my knowledge and abilities into this masterpiece. And they just couldn’t see or appreciate it. 

Of course it hasn’t been for myself! Or was it? For a short moment I doubted myself. Yes, it has been one of my first orders, and yes, it was the first one to match my visions of sustainable personal transportation so perfectly. Yes, I may have gotten a little bit overboard, but could I really have misunderstood that order so grotesquely wrong?

Sensing my uncertainty, the husband snapped: “Don’t expect us to buy such a monstrosity! This is not what we ordered! This device doesn’t deserve to ever be looked upon by anyone on this planet! Do the world a favour and scrap this experimental contraption as soon as possible!”

“Yeah, and keep this ugly piece of shit hidden until then.”, sneered the fat, bratty son. “It causes me stomach aches and eye-cancer!”

“Just look at this bland colour! It hurts the eyes!” seconded the equally fat and spoiled daughter.

At that point something in me snapped and I yelled back: “An aerodynamic design is never ugly, just not very common and therefore a bit unusual! And the colour is the same as the sky! What is wrong with that? My velomobile is no “contraption” and certainly no monstrosity! And If you are too stupid to recognize that, or can’t appreciate the hard work I put into it, I don’t mind taking your business elsewhere!”

Everyone stared at me as if a cockroach had entered a boxing match.

“How dare you!” shouted the father back. “After you insulted us with this bloody excuse for a bike you even talk back at me?! What kind of rude, spoiled bastard are you anyway?!”

“Yeah, rude!”

“Don’t you know any shame?”

“Apologize this instant!”

Again the insults rained onto me, and I waited, till they ran a little bit dry.

“Do you still need something here? If not, again, please take your business elsewhere.” I said coldly. What did I have to lose at this point?

Again they gaped at me with big saucer like eyes, that reminded me of a frog.

“You!” roared the father and nearly stabbed me with his finger. “You don’t get to tell us when or where to leave or where we take our business! Consider our contract terminated and don’t you ever dare to expect any payment for …this!”

Contemptuously he waved his hand toward my velomobile. And before I could get him the reply he deserved, his head snapped back towards me and his voice lowered dangerously.

“And don’t you dare to utter even one single more word back at me, or I swear I’ll sue your ass off, that you drown in debt till the end of your days! Is that understood?”

I pressed my lips tightly together and didn’t move one single muscle in my body, staring him coldly in the eyes.

“Your business is going down, I’ll make sure of that!” he ranted on. “You’ll never sell even one single piece of your shit anymore to anyone! You are a danger to every honest and hard working citizen! Our society needs to be protected from the likes of you!”

This was getting ridiculous! I couldn’t help but give him a big, though somewhat cold grin.

“You see this?” he shouted, pointing at me. “He doesn’t give a damn! Hopeless! We’ll see if you are still laughing next month! Let’s go! This rotten piece of shit makes me sick!”

With that they finally left, their noses high in the air.

“And don’t expect any positive reviews on Google.” sneered the bratty son one last time, before the door slammed shut.