Saddling the Vulture

Something that is difficult in Panama is described as being "like trying to put a saddle on a vulture."

Damn that vulture. The waste of flesh that is the "house sitter" for the house I am trying to acquire has told the current home owner that he needs another couple of weeks. I could pack the worthless bastard in about an hour. Hell, he moved in from his tiny sailboat. They appear to have nothing more than some clothes that would readily fit in a 30 liter backpack. So now I have to figure out where I am going to stay now that I have given my landlord notice.

The boat builder I was referred to in Panama City does not consider replying to emails on sales inquiries part of the sales cycle and doesn't understand what I am saying on the phone.

Another boat builder replied to a sixty line email outlining my requirements with "I have a mold for a 22 foot panga." That was it, the message in its entirety. Thank you for not exhausting me with superfluous information such as features, function, weight, cost, delivery time or engine rating.

The administrator of a local crime watch site, who pulled two of my crime reports because the thief named in one of them wrote and said, "No, it's my computer, it was a gift." Gift my ass. I reported a different theft of a camera, a kindle and a flashlight. "The person identified alleges that she was out of the country at the time of the theft." The person identified is bat shit crazy and told the sheriff that I was in jail for assaulting somebody with a machete in the central park while trying to gain access to my apartment. She told my landlord the same thing. Everybody knew I was in Panama City, in the hospital.

My landlord says that only he, she and I had keys. I don't know when the camera and related thefts occurred, I reported a time window, between July 4 and July 14th. The thief of my computer was posting messages on a local yahoo group during that time period stating that she was in Bocas. The moderator of that site also moderates http://bocas.crowdmap.com.

The only crime that was left posted on the site was one in which somebody broke into my apartment and stole two computers, which were subsequently returned. This entry was marked as "Verified", the moderator assumed some level of authority. Despite repeated requests to just delete the entry as the moderator refused to do so and ignored all of my emails. Funny, one of the criminals makes a request and gets immediate compliance and the victim can't even get a response. When I posted an inquiry on the local yahoo group asking what was meant by "verified" I received the following response.

"Verified" is a subjective term. It means that the information is reliable,
because it comes from someone with personal knowledge or has been confirmed in
some manner. In some cases, a post will be left as "unverified" until I can
contact the original poster to get clarification on certain details. I am the
administrator and I have to make that call. In your case, when your original
post was made, I marked it as "verified" because you were the (alleged) victim
and you were reporting as of your own knowledge. I will not make that mistake
again.

On the local group board somebody posted Just to reinforce this message, we had a flier up about a boat for sale and were approached by a local who said he could sell it for us. He seemed like a nice guy and could keep the boat in his yard where it would be more visible. So we put the boat there with our phone number to call if someone was interested. We would pay him a commission if it sold. Soon he said the boat was sold, it was gone and the money was in his account and "not available yet." After much help by the police we located the boat and got our money back. He had sold it for quite a bit more than he said and I doubt we ever would have gotten anything without the police assistance. So just be very careful. And the moderator threw out, Was the guy who "brokered" the boat deal a guy who goes by the moniker "Robinson" by any chance? implicating someone with absolutely no evidence. So much for her sense of fair play.

Now the crazy woman who stole my MacBook is threatening to post on the web the details of my arrest. "There was no arrest, you have no documents. Why do you keep sending me crazy emails?".


Do I sound just a little frustrated?