The following is an actual letter of complaint which I grabbed off the
net many years ago (when it used to be called net.jokes, if you can
remember that long ago!) Unfortunately, I dont have the original
source anymore. Note the date sent and the prices quoted.
Atlanta, Georgia
September 13, 1970
Director
Billing Department
Shell Oil Company
P.O. Box XXXX
Tulsa, Oklahoma 74102
Dear Sir:
I have been a regular customer of the Shell Oil Company for several
years now, and spend approximately $40.00 per month on Shell products.
Until recently, I have been completely satisfied with the quality of
Shell products and with the service of Shell employees.
Included in my most recent statement from your department was a bill
for $12.00 for a tire which I purchased at the Lowell I. Reels Shell
station in McAdenville, N.C. I stopped at this station for gasoline
and to have a timing malfunction corrected. The gasoline cost $5.15;
eight new plugs cost $9.36; labor on the points $2.50. All well and
good.
Earlier in the day I had a flat tire, which the attendant at the
Lowell I. Reels station informed me that he was unable to fix. He
suggested that I purchase a tire from him in order that I have a spare
for the remainder of my journey to Atlanta. I told him that I
preferred to buy tires from home station in Atlanta, but he continued
to stress the risk of driving without a spare. My reluctance to trade
with an unknown dealer, even a Shell dealer, did not discourage him
and finally, as I was leaving, he said that out of concern for my
safety (my spare was not new) and because I had made a substantial
expenditure at his station, he would make me a special deal. He
produced a tire (Hits a good one. Still has the tits on it. See
them tits. Hits a twenty dollar tar.) which I purchased for twelve
dollars and which he installed on the front left side for sixty-five
cents. Fifty miles further down the highway, I had a blowout.
Not a puncture which brought a slow, flapping flat, nor a polite
ladyfinger firecracker rubberburpple rupture (pop); but a howitzer
blowout, which reared the the hood of my car up into my face, a
blowout, sir, which tore a flap of rubber from this tire large
enough to make soles for both sandals of a medium sized hippie. In a
twinkling, then, I was driving down Interstate 85 at sixty miles per
hour on three tires and one rim with rubber clinging to it in
desperate shreds and patches, an instrument with a bent, revolving,
steel-then-rubber-then-steel rim, whose sound can be approximated by
the simultaneous placing of a handful of gravel and a young duck into
a Waring Blender.
The word careen does no justice whatever to the movement that the
car then performed. According to the highway patrolmans report, the
driver in the adjoining lane, the left hand– who, incidentally, was
attempting to pass me at the time– ejaculated adrenelin all over the
ceiling of his car. My own passengers were fused into a featureless
quiver in the key of G in the back seat of my car. The rim was
bent; the tits were gone; and you can f–k yourself with a cream
cheese dildo if you entertain for one moment the delusion that I
intend to pay the twelve dollars.
Sincerely yours,
/s/ T.B.T.