Have you ever known someone who was nice as pie yet very demanding? It's as though they live right on the cusp of pushing you too far yet realize precisely where that boundary is and as such, don't push quite that hard.
Yesterday saw this guy in my life come into the Shop. And that time he almost made it to that boundary. He had a 3/4 cable but wanted to me to put a 5/8 fitting in it so that the cable would, by his logic, make turns easier.
It would not. I explained that to him until I was nearly blue in the face. He still had a 3/4 cable while the working end of the fitting was exactly the same size as the working end of the 5/8 fitting. The difference was in the side which threaded into the cable. You do not want the thing smaller there; it would not be secure enough.
After ten minutes of discussion he asked, "Are you sure?" and man, I nearly lost it. It was times like that where I fully understand me Grandpa Joe flying off the handle at people. I so wanted to channel my inner Joe. I wanted to yell, "Yes! Yes I'm sure, more certain of this than in anything else in my life! I've been doing this 45 years (old guys get to say things such as that) and the right way to do it is exactly what I'm telling you!" and so on and so forth.
But I took a deep breath, a really, unimaginably deep breath, and, blowing it out slowly and deliberately, responded quietly if perhaps with an undertone of exasperation, "Yes. I am sure."
So he let me do it my way. Yet I'm sure he doesn't realize how close he had crept to all out war.
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