George.... Where  is Southern PA?  Got to be the right side of
the state?

            Eric                   86-VW4x4
            vw4x4@fyi.net          86-SS Syncro
            Pittsburgh, PA USA     1936-Chrysler
                                   92-Jetta GWC
            www.fyi.net/~vw4x4/vw4x4.htm

On Thu, 18 Nov 2004, George Goff wrote:

> In a message dated 11/17/04 10:03:50 PM, jjmojo@BLAZENET.NET writes:
>
> << Van is not rusty at all.. super minor seam rust on drivers side that i
> have addressed and stopped. >>
>
> >From time to time I see statements such as this both here and in other venues
> and I have to wonder why such things are said.  These incongruities often
> cause me to doubt the discernment if not the integrity of the speaker.  Although
> it is not a legitimate word, "rustfree" means NO rust, none, zip, nada.  "Not
> rusty at all" means the same.  Mint means MINT.  Cherry means CHERRY.
> Pristine means PRISTINE.  When we are cutting deals more and more at greater and
> greater distances, these words take on even greater import.
>
> I just drove 500 miles to buy a car which was offered up as rustfree.
> Although the seller seemed to be accurate and honest whenever I spoke to him, I
> still was compelled to parse his every word to the point that I had him on the
> ground with phone in hand checking every seam I had known to rust on the type of
> car he was selling.  Fortunately, he was more of a mechanic and less of a
> salesmen, so evasiveness was not his forte.  Even after all that I put him
> through, I still expected to be greeted with disappointment whenever I would see the
> car.  Well, hallelujah!  Tell Diogenes to snuff out his lantern because I
> finally found an honest man after viewing cars advertised on the internet over the
> past 10 years.
>
> Last year at this time I bought another car at distance.  The experience was
> not as uneventful as my recent one, but it was salvageable.  The car was 140
> miles from me and it was succinctly offered up as "pristine".  In speaking with
> the seller, I detected an accent so I kept hammering him on the word
> "pristine" until I was sure he appreciated its meaning and also appreciated the fact
> that I was about to travel nearly 300 miles on the weight of that one word.  As
> it turned out, the car was very, very nice, but not pristine.  As it also
> turned out, the seller was an Argentinean with a Ph.D. in poli sci from Columbia
> so whenever I handed him a sheet of paper with the definition of "pristine"
> printed on it (P to the sixth power - Prior Planning Prevents Piss Poor
> Performance), this man of letters was most accepting of my offer.
>
> George
>