Sideshow

Dial M for Mother

It looked like the right telephone number when Gary Gleason wrote it down, but when he saw it printed 2 feet tall on the banner hanging over Aspen, Colo.’s, Main Street, he realized it was not the correct number for the Roaring Fork Transit Agency.

It was his mother’s telephone number.

Gleason, the marketing director for the bus company, thought that if he publicized a number for schedule information, people would call. And they did.

Mary Gleason, Gary’s mother, was flooded with calls for the bus company. She hooked up an answering machine that gave callers the correct number, and Gary hurriedly ordered a new banner.

“I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry,” Gary said. “So I decided to laugh. These things happen.”

Make `em wait in line, too

Ah, sweet revenge.

A homeowner in Oslo, Norway, foreclosed on his bank earlier this month when it failed to make a payment on time.

As part of a real estate settlement, a Trondheim court had ordered Den Norske Bank, Norway’s largest, to pay Kjell Rundgren 120,000 kroner ($20,000) by Feb. 25.

The bank said it would not pay until an appeal had been decided, but Rundgren countered that the original amount of the dispute, 18,000 kroner ($3,000), was below the minimum amount allowed for an appeal.

So Rundgren began foreclosure proceedings, and threatened to sell the bank’s main office building to cover the original amount, court costs and interest.

“It’s a nice, big building in downtown Trondheim,” said Carl Hestbek, Rundgren’s attorney. “We are giving the bank a taste of exactly the same medicine it uses on its customers.”

Sweating the swank way

In America’s ongoing quest to spend money instead of doing push-ups, Washington, D.C., entrepeneur Fred Daniels has reached a milestone, and passed it with his mobile health club.

On the outside, it is a five-ton, 32-foot trailer pulled by a pickup truck. On the inside, it is an ’80s icon, the health club, complete with air conditioning, mirrored walls, carpeting, track lighting, stereo and spring water. Oh, and equipment — $30,000 worth of weights, StairMaster, excercise bike and rowing machine.

Daniels, formerly a professional guitarist and singer, will drive his “Fitness Fleet” (so far it is a fleet of one, but he hopes to expand) to your doorstep for just $50 to $80 an hour — provided you sign up for at least 12 weeks, and pay in advance. Daniels says that provides extra incentive for his lycra-clad clientele to stick with it.

Then again, how easy can it be to avoid your workout when the gym is idling in your driveway? — Wire reports compiled by Steve Kloehn