Trapped on a mountain

By Dave Frank

Appeal Staff Writer

I had to buy snow chains last week.

I wanted to go to a city in California for a day, but a man who could have been a fraud waved his arms at me to stop before I could cross the mountains between my car and the city.

"You have chains?" the man said.

"No," I said.

"We can sell you some, cash only, or you can turn around," he said.

"I'll turn around," I said.

So I turned off at an exit and stopped at a gas station to buy potato chips. The gas station attendant asked me if I wanted to buy snow chains, and I bought them because the trip was the only thing I had planned.

I asked her if she could put them on my car because I didn't know how. She said she could but it would cost money and I would have to wait 10 minutes.

"We're really busy," she said.

So I agreed to wait and get cheated out of money because I thought I could entertain myself for a while by looking at snack food labels.

"So they make that with almonds now?" I thought, looking at a wrapper.

But that got boring really fast and other customers got mad at me because I always happened to be standing in front of the snack food they wanted.

The biggest problem was that when I did move, I didn't move far enough and was still blocking the snack they wanted.

"I'm sorry," I'd say falling over myself trying to clear the space in front of a rack of black licorice.

It was probably a half hour before I gained enough courage to stop pacing the aisles and stand near the counter.

I tried to then put my head in the space where the woman was staring, but she just looked away. Then I started to say words under my breath like "so" and "well" to get her attention.

I eventually got angry enough to ask her timidly some sort of question relating to tires. She acted like we had never had an agreement.

"They have workers out on the highway who can do that for you," she said.

"Thanks," I said.

So I drove away and never stopped for any highway workers who said I had to put on snow chains. I did slide a few times and was tailed by other drivers who thought I was going too slow, but that was OK.

I just went over the mountains, through the woods and to a city where no one tried to sell me snow chains.

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Three Carson City Mary Kay consultants get to use brand new company cars to sell their products. Jann Fargnoli has a Pink Cadillac CTS, Ann Dankworth has a Saturn Aura XE and Carol Swanson has a Saturn Vue AWD XE. For more information, call 267-0445 or go to www.marykay.com/jfargnoli.

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Carson City-based New Horizons Unlimited has launched a campaign to promote their SUNdition product, a SPF 15 sun block that is also a hair conditioner. For more information or samples, call 888-786-3484 or go to www.sundition.com.

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Sharon Swanson, owner of Assist-2-Sell Northern Nevada Properties, placed in the top 10 percent of all Assist-2-Sell offices for the month of November. Assist-2-Sell's Carson City office competed against more than 600 other franchise offices throughout North America to win this award. Their Web site is www.buyandsellnevada.com.

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Cal-Nevada Precision Blasting, out of Carson City, has purchased 2.5 more acres at the Tahoe Reno Industrial Center in Storey County. The company now owns four parcels of land, all about the same size.

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Carson City dentist Dr. Andrew Robison is now using a Velscope at his office to help detect oral cancer. Call Redrock Family Dental at 885-9446 for more information.