Business booming for Asheville’s luxury-car distressers Correction
WEST ASHEVILLE, MONDAY — There’s one thing that Asheville twenty-somethings won’t be caught dead in — a nice car that has been given to them by their parents.
That’s where entrepreneur Chris Nichols comes in.
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“I noticed that there were a lot of people taking flack for driving newer- model, upper- end cars and SUVs,” Nichols said one recent morning while working in his shop distressing a 2003 Toyota Land Cruiser. “They didn’t have the time or know-how to give their cars the beat-up, down-home look that is so desirable here and it broke my heart.”
Nichols gets paid top dollar to take clients’ new vehicles and scuff, scrape, fade and nick them until they convey an earthier, “good-people” vibe, and business is booming.
“I had a shiny, perfect-condition, new Suburu wagon that I was deeply ashamed to be seen in,” said one of Nichols’ recent clients. “Using nothing but a hammer, a can of spray paint and several dozen nonsensical bumper stickers, Chris helped degrade my ride and, in doing so, vastly improved my selfesteem.”
According to Nichols, many of his customers are going for one particular effect — decreasing public perception of their net worth.
For an extra $400, Nichols will even install an unconnected pan beneath his clients’ cars that is designed to slowly but steadily drip vegetable oil, providing the owner with unimpeachable Asheville bona fides.
Flush with success, Nichols is already planning his next venture.
“I could get top dollar hawking forged birth certificates that would enable those who are ashamed to admit they have moved here in the past 10 years to instead boldly proclaim they were born in an overgrown field in Madison County,” Nichols said. “And the certificate will empower them to bring that fact up in every single casual conversation they have, just like an authentic local.”
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Looking for a new home? Getting evicted from the home I sold you last year? Ignore the experts — the market is red-hot!
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Especially now, with a foreclosure dragging down your credit, you don’t want to start trusting your own judgment! Come hell or high water, I guarantee that you will be a homeowner for at least six months this time! I’ll even do what I can to put you back in the home I helped you purchase last year!
“I didn’t think I could afford a home until I talked to Mark at WNC Real Estate Realtors®.
He showed me that, with a little creative number crunching, exaggerated claims of income and an awesome adjustable rate mortgage, that I too could own a home! That was two years ago, and now that I’m homeless again, I’ll definitely be going back to Mark for my next real estate purchase.”
Last week, we reported that the Mountain Xpress blogs would feature relevant and intelligent discourse on important local matters. We apologize for this error.
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LOCAL ATTRACTIONS
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CULTURE
Hot Springs girl livens up otherwise respectable party
MEDIA WATCH
Mayor Bellamy orders Matt Mittan removed from Ryan’s Steakhouse
Procedural rules favor mayor’s claim to last half-pan of mashed potatoes
LITERATURE
Gothic girl slinking around Thomas Wolfe’s grave beginning to weird out hungover groundskeeper
RELATIONSHIPS
Local girl’s deflowering by high-school dropout in back of low-rider stopped in traffic while cruising Patton Avenue and surrounded by cheering audience not as special as she long imagined it would be
TECHNOLOGY
105.9 deejay decommissioned after breaking Asimov’s 1st Law of Robotics
Today’s featured spills on I-40
Brought to you by the Time-Saver’s Traffic Report, featuring Captain Jeff, reporting live via fuzzy cell phone while hovering over the WWNC parking lot in his parked Honda Accord helicopter
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• An overturned trailer has spilled its cargo of red bouncy balls and live tarantulas on the exit 51 off-ramp near Asheville’s Fun Depot.
• A truck containing 146 wolf-hybrids has overturned in West Asheville. Several dozen of the wolf-hybrids have been located and reloaded into the truck, which was put back upright, allowing it to continue to its destination in Raleigh.
• A truck containing several dozen wolfhybrids has overturned in East Asheville.
• An overturned tractor-trailer ferrying illegal immigrants into North Carolina has cleaned itself up.
• A truck carrying foxes, chickens and sacks of corn has overturned near mile marker 30. Crash-scene investigators are working overtime to find one clever farmer with a small boat who can successfully clear the road.
The Asheville Ethicist
Q. As a member of the local lesbian community, I can verify the cliché that the dating pool here is small enough to practically be incestuous. So, my question — is there an ethical dilemma with lesbians dating their first cousins?
A. I think there is, but I can’t quite put my finger on it. So, no. Regardless, you’ll never be able to marry your first cousin, because you’re gay.
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