Ferengi Plumber

All types of customers have crossed the threshold of the old barn. There's Eeyore, who was always gloomy. Cash Adams, to quote me Grandpa Joe, lived by the axiom of Get Cash, Pay Cash. Joe actually nicknamed Adams that because he didn't trust him; by labelling him 'Cash' Adams he shamed the man into paying up front for everything. California was a plumber who sounded exactly like, and I mean exactly like, Huckleberry Hound. And then there was the Ferengi Drain Cleaner.

For those of you not familiar with the Ferengi, they were meant to be the villains in Star Trek: The Next Generation. They were a race of the future, and supremely, bizarrely capitalist, childishly obsessed with money making. They were the epitome of buy low, sell high. They were short, with oversized heads, ears, and bad teeth. They quickly proved too comic to be formidable adversaries for the Starship Enterprise and crew. 

One of them was somehow transported through a time warp to the late Twentieth Century, to become a plumber in Detroit and environs. He had an oversized head, massive ears, and was rather short. He was not bald, however, as our Star Trek, um, enemies were. Ferengi Drain Cleaner had quite a head of hair. So all you Trekkies out there, imagine Quark with an Elvis wig.

He also was manically concerned with getting things on the cheap. Ferengi guy constantly hassled me Pops and me for better prices. We learned through the grapevine though that his own prices were significantly above the curve. All, of course, for his own profit, as any caricature of capitalism would have it.

Ferengi Plumber. He was out of this world. He was out of his mind, too, if you ask me.