The Cassette Tapes

You guys have heard Doc and I comment before about how the most random and bizarre things happen to us. Well here is a good example. the following story IS true. I will use our real names as it is essential for the story....

Shane (Doc) and I (Vin, The Mountain Cat) have always been into collecting music. Back in the day before CD burners and MP3, we both would make mixed cassette tapes of our favorite tunes. When we first became friends in Charlotte back in 1989, we would sometimes borrow each others music collection. I remember one particular time in school I lent Shane one of my Bad-Assed Mixed Tapes of popular tunes. I don’t recall what songs were on it, but trust me, if I made it, it was Bad-Assed!

Late morning on that Saturday, Shane and his father drove over to my house to hang out and meet my parents for the first time. They lived only a couple of miles from my house so it was convenient. Unfortunately, Shane’s mom could not come as she was running a yard sale at her home. My mom was out grocery shopping and running errands. So both our mom’s never ‘formally’ met. Shane and his dad relaxed on back porch for an hour or two and left after lunch. It was just a lazy sunny afternoon and I just relaxed around the house. My mom came home later that afternoon and called me to come to the kitchen.

‘Vin, I bought something for you’, my mom said, so I came downstairs. ‘I bought you a box of cassette tapes.’

I excitedly said thank you! I opened up the box to see about 10 various colored cassettes without their box covers.

As I rummaged though the box, one of the tapes looked very familiar.

‘Mom where did you get these tapes from?’, I asked.

‘From this woman having a yard sale near Old Concord Road for three dollars.’, she replied.

‘Old Concord Road?? Shane lives around there!’ At that time I pulled out one of the tapes and it was my Bad-Assed Mixed Tape!

‘Mom, this is my tape!’

Then I pulled out another tape that had ‘S. Little’ written on it (pictured below).

'Little? That’s Shane’s last name! Mom, these are Shane’s tapes! You bought these tapes from Shane’s mom!’

She essentially bought the tape that I lent to Shane for free!We were both in shock. What are the odds? This is just too surreal.

I called Shane to tell him this incredible series of events. At first he was amazed but then he got angry. Apparently, Shane had a box of stuff in his room that he wanted his mom to sell. However, she picked up the wrong box and sold his mixed tapes instead!

‘She didn’t sell what I wanted her to sell!!’, yelled Shane.

Later than evening after the drama died down, I listed to some of my new cassettes. One was an unmarked brown tape. I put it in the tape deck and pressed play. Then I heard Shane’s mom’s voice emanate from the tape reciting: ‘In the living room we have a one couch, two lamps, a radio, a TV, Encyclopedia Britannica…..’

What the heck?

The next morning I talked to Shane on the phone and asked him about the tape his mom made. He was still fuming over our moms’ transaction and said that his mom made that tape to record the inventory of their house possessions for insurance purposes just in case there was a fire. (Of course I didn’t ask why you would keep those tapes within a burning house. But that’s a question for another time).

‘Vin, can I have those tapes back please?', Shane asked.

‘No’, I said. ‘My mom bought me these fair and square.’ I may have returned the brown inventory tape only to his mom though.

To this day both our mom’s have not met each other.

Also to this day, Shane is still mad at me for not giving him his tapes back! I still have some of them. Ok, Shane, I will compromise, you can buy them off me for four dollars. What do you say? (I mean shouldn’t I make a profit?). Just kidding, Doc. In my defense I did burn several mixed CDs for Doc over the years to make up for it.

Epilogue:
My mom also bought this little porcelain trinket from Doc's mom that she still has:

- The Mountain Cat