Joe's righteous anger

Me Grandpa Joe rented welding machines, as many of you by now know. He really wasn't fussy about much, but one of those things was his welding cable.

Each machine typically had to have 150-200 feet of cable while in operation. These cables were copper coated rubber and were about an inch thick. He always made sure that they were rolled in loops which were easy for a man to carry on his shoulder. On this point he was very particular; it could take forever to unknot even one cable. That was just time wasted, he rightly believed. Coil the cables, tie them off, and stack them nicely when the job was through, that was his mantra.

Once Acme Steel Processors (not the company's real name) rented ten welders from Joe and had them for a couple of months. When the job was over, Joe himself happened to be the man who went to pick them up. He was greeted at the Acme plant with a pile of unrolled, tangled cable. All his beautiful welding cable, more than 2,000 feet, was piled in a jumbled, knotted mess upon a pallet. His fuse, short anyway, was set.

About then the foreman came up to Joe and said, "There was trouble with one of your welders. The plant manager wants to talk to you."

Joe barked, "That's just dandy, because I want to talk to him too."

Grandpa stormed into the plant manager's office. The manager, I'll call him Cloyce just to give him a name, never had a chance to open his mouth. Joe lit right into him, a blast of emphatic, rough English, yet with no expletives more than Joe's liberal use of the mild one 'hell', explaining exactly how little he cared for discovering his cable in one God-awful mess. That was not how he delivered it, Joe vigorously orated. It was gonna take hours to sort out he, um, explained. I've been told it was quite a harangue. Those who do not know Joe must understand that when his dander was up, whole neighborhoods knew it. Hell, to use his favorite word, small towns were made aware.

As Joe was winding down Cloyce made the mistake of remarking, "You don't have to be so loud, Joe."

"Hell yeah I do!" Joe bellowed. "I want everyone in here to know what I think and I don't want to have to tell them each individually!" He was off again.

I don't believe Cloyce ever got to voice his complaint. He was probably quite happy to get back to the mundane tasks of plant managing once Grandpa left.