People Being People

Wednesday, I received a text asking whether I had four-foot-long drain snake cable sections. Responding yes, I was asked if they could be picked up Friday (yesterday) and at what time? I answered that Friday was fine and added that I was available from 10-3. I'm open longer than that, but learned a long time ago that you have to corral folks. Availability can always be 'expanded' if and as necessary.

You will notice that I told the man 10 until 3. That information in the text I sent is time stamped 11:14 AM this past Wednesday.

Would you believe the guy texted me at 2:59 Friday afternoon asking when he could pick up those cables? I am not kidding, and I am not adding such detail to sensationalize the story. The text is time stamped 2:59 PM, Friday October 30. "Can you be here in one minute?" I wanted ask. Because, correct me if I'm wrong, being available from 10 till 3 means I am not available before 10 AM nor after 3 PM on a specifically given day.

Instead, I gritted my teeth and replied I could meet at 4. He answered in turn good, that his GPS said he was 42 minutes away. I said fine. He immediately returned, 'I'm not sure when I can be there though'. Then why in the hell were asking me to begin with?

Honestly, starting a text thread sixty seconds ahead of a deadline which I had given you two days before, being offered another time as you requested, then adding you really did not know when you could make it anyway? What. The. Hell. I wouldn't have even bothered texting that late myself to begin with, knowing what he theoretically knew, and I'm not that much smarter than the average man. But he still figured it was okay to ask, and at that not actually knowing his own availability.

In what universe can that possibly make sense? Or did Trick or Treat come early, and I'm being pranked?

The Cosgriff Dock

Wednesday, October 28, marked the end of a personal era. After 55 years, Cosgriff Sales made its last pickup at Electric Eel Manufacturing in Springfield, Ohio. The company is moving production to Niles, Michigan. 

No offense to Niles. I'm sure my upcoming journeys there will bring their own enjoyment. There's even a truck stop restaurant in that direction which Dad liked and to which I will surely make routine visits. But I'm going to miss those Springfield trips. I've been making them myself or with me brother Phil, and occasionally with me son Charlie or me son Frank, at least once a month for 13 and a half years. Before that I was there regularly with me Pops, and even a few times with me Grandpa Joe way back (way, way back) when I was a teen. It was almost like old home, seeing the workers there who became friends.

Time marches on. I did allow myself to be a bit sentimental, taking about a dozen pictures in and around the Springfield facility and which I intend to make into an album. Here's one of the last pick up being made in my new old van. 

I've often thought of that as the Cosgriff Dock, though I know others have resupplied at that door as well. 

I'll miss the place. I'll miss the people. I'll miss the stops along the way. It was a good run.

Who Pays the Tab

It's always great to deal with folks who have a sense of humor.

Yesterday I paid a bill over the phone. I had my invoice and customer number right in front of me. After I rattled the numbers off to the woman who answered the call, she pulled everything up on her computer. "So, let's see. We're paying $738.19 today?"

"We are?" I replied with purposely too much enthusiasm. "Thanks!"

 The agent burst into laughter. "It is right we get things straight, isn't it? You're paying $738.19 today."

"If you insist," I answered with a chuckle. But she thanked me for giving her a laugh.

I figure the money's due no matter what. Have fun with it.

Cloyce Destroys My Model C

I remember a time when I was 16 or 17 that Pops handed over to me a used Electric Eel Model C drain cleaning machine which he had taken in on trade, and told me to clean it up for sale. With that, for honestly the first time in my life, I went all out on a work project. I really put my heart into the job.

I took the motor off the frame, and washed all the grime off both. I painted the motor gray and the frame royal blue, just as they painted them at the Eel factory. I rewired it and installed new wheels. All the bolts everywhere on that unit were new. When I was finished with it that baby looked sharp. She was dressed to the nines. I was truly proud of my work. Pops was too. That made me feel very good.

A few days later a regular customer, I'll call him Cloyce just to give him a name, came by. I was busied at some project at a work bench in the middle of the Shop, the old barn where I still work. "Bill,' I heard Cloyce say to my father, "Have you got any used Models Cs?"

My heart sank right to floor. It seeped right through my boots.

You see, Cloyce was a great guy and a good customer. He never debated cost nor asked for better prices. He just bought what he wanted and said thank you. But man oh man, he was one lousy drain cleaner. He lost more cables in more sewers than you might think it possible for any one man to lose. I think he lost more snake cable in a given year than entire companies would in two. He abused his equipment in ways and manners unimaginable, incomprehensible to the rational human mind. In the museum of incompetent plumbers, yes, I mean this, is a solid gold, life size statue of Cloyce. He was simply not good at what he did. It remains a wonder to me how he ever got any jobs. Who, once they had seen his work, would refer him?

And Pops was going to sell him my Model C.

He couldn't not not sell the man the machine. I get that. We were, are still, in the business of selling new and used drain snakes, and Cloyce's money was as good as anyone else's. Plus, his poor skills weren't our fault. The old man had to sell the unit. As he took Cloyce's money me Pops, for likely the only time in his life, looked over at me with a sheepish, embarrassed, pained look which plainly said, 'I'm sorry, son'.

Cloyce wheeled that Eel out the door with a bright smile, while I was truly morose. You know those classic theater masks, the grinning one which represents comedy and the crying one which spoke tragedy? I learned that moment how tragedy felt. My youthful innocence was broken, its tatters strewn across the Shop floor.

Within a month Cloyce brought that Model C into the Shop for a switch or something. The front swivel caster was gone and the frame broken off so that the drive shaft had no support. The paint was scratched and grime covered my first child. I swear it looked up at me in despair and whispered pathetically, "Shoot me."

Bernie's Benign Deflect

Bernie Sanders was in Michigan yesterday, campaigning for someone or another. He gave a speech from behind a podium. The podium had a sign. The sign urged voters to Fight Oligarchy.

Oh. That's. Rich. He does know what an oligarchy is, I would think. But let's spell it out for him anyway: it's rule by a few.

I know what he means by it. He means we shouldn't be ruled by a handful of wealthy businessmen. Now, rule by a handful of wealthy government officials, well, that's a different thing entirely. But why?

Because he's one of those few, that's why. He's made his living in Washington. He's established who he is there. Yet it's those other bad, rich guys we should worry about. Not the ones like him, who hold a power more dangerous than Elon Musk: the arbitrary and unilateral hand of government. The hand which can give thumbs up to what it likes and thumbs down to what it condemns. The hand which can, will, and has broken people.

Not that the private rich aren't without power and pull we plebes don't enjoy. At the risk of understatement, that can be bad. Evil is endemic to the human condition, and we simply cannot eradicate it everywhere and for all times. But I'm with C. S. Lewis on government power over private power:

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”

To wit: we can, at least to a degree, avoid dealing with private entities. I don't have to buy a Tesla. But I have to deal with government, and its hunger never stops, precisely because it knows best. It has assured itself of that.

What Uncle Bernie has done is classic: accuse the other guy of the evil you're doing. It makes you seem pure while all along, you're the true oligarch. It's so obvious it astounds me that voters, at least some of them, can't see it.

I Just Watch Sportsball

There's a Monty Python skit - bear with me, Ron - where John Cleese plays an oaf a soccer player who can hardly put a sentence together while Eric Idle is an interviewer trying to get into the intricacies of the game. Cleese answers a question, "I kicked the ball, then there it was, in the back of the net." That was in response to Idle asking about the positioning of the opposing players and blah, blah about what deep strategies led to the goal. It's clear that even Cleese doesn't get it. He's just a guy who scored a goal, a deer in the headlights of a self important reporter.

I feel like the Cleese character these days, when watching sports. When did they become so complicated?

Watching golf early this morning, a replay of an earlier event, the broadcasters were describing a shot where so-and-so was taking advantage of such-and-such by using a club with a 52 degree head angle rather than 51.5, which was surprising considering tons of various other factors including that the club shaft was a rare Uruguayan titanium alloy and it had rained six hours ago in northeast Ohio while a local woman delivered twins in the back of a taxi with the help of a well I won't go into that. All the while I'm thinking, about the golfer, "He hit the ball well."

I see it in other games too. A shortstop throws a batter out at first base and the announcers describe the play as though they're writing War and Peace. Meanwhile I'm slapping my son on the shoulder, shouting, "Did you see that throw?"

All right, players are looking for every possible advantage and reporters want to sound like they know what they're taking about. But it doesn't add a thing to the game for me, and I doubt most others. And I can't help wonder if any of it really makes a difference anyway.

Another Dumb Term

I went online this morning and ordered a book. I selected the book, I entered my card information, I received a confirmation number as well as a confirmation e-mail. The book itself won't be available until November, but it's been ordered. I will get a copy.

I will stress it's been ordered. I will get it.

So why, pray tell, does everything and everyone involved in this situation (except me) insist that I've pre-ordered it?

Please tell me what I'm missing. I ordered it. It is paid for. I have a receipt. It is coming. What the hell is pre about that?

Should I be stressing over this? I think so. It is not what they're saying it is. It. Is. An. Order. For. A. Book. How hard is that to understand?

Or maybe I should have given them a pre-debit card and have the thing pre-shipped to my pre-address? It makes as much sense to me.

Curmudgeon rant over. But he will seethe about this for a few hours.