Had a run in with the law

Joseph didn’t mean any harm. In fact, that was his first statement.

“I didn’t mean no harm.” he exclaimed while being dragged out of the hole he had made in the ground by a surly cop.

The police man threw Joseph to the ground and grabbed Paul by the strap of his overalls and heaved him out of the hole as well.

The two boys were covered in dirt and were astonished to have been caught but also were passing guilty glances at each other as they knew, this time, they were in trouble.

“What did you do?” Harry the policeman asked, “and what am I going to tell your mother?”

Suffering

My job entails helping the helpless. Hopelessly without a clue. Left behind in the 1950s mentality. Owns a cell phone but only uses it for phone calls level of idiocy. The reason for this is simple. I sell lawn mower parts, and anyone with a hint of intelligence has learned long ago that anything and everything is available in bulk on the Internet and all it takes is a bit of research. My customers are those that haven’t figured this out yet.

That’s not entirely fair to my entire clientage. Many are professionals with dozens of mowers and multiple crews running at any one time and are simply trying to keep everything running smoothly and don’t have the time to work on their own machines or track down every little part. 

Then there’s the other half. The ones that come in looking for parts for 30 year old mowers or think we should service the barely serviceable crap they bought at Menards. (Largely because the Menards bastards send them our way as a way to clear their own queues without taking inventory back.) 

And so I get the guy that knows he needs a belt. Mostly because of the broken one in his hand, but knows nothing other than his blades don’t spin or his tractor won’t move. Thousands upon thousands of parts in inventory and millions otherwise available at my fingertips and I have to know the one part that was discontinued or, just, match it up.

“Here. You fix!”

Which is fine. Solving intractable problems is my forte, but my job is to suffer so that the elder Weingartz don’t have to. I’m literally paid to disappoint the least people in the gentlest way possible.

What you thought. vs. What you said.

Working around another’s lack of understanding is a gift. I mean if everyone could do it, then we’d be able to get by on our own wits, empathize with our sisters and brothers and find the third way. The place where everyone is at least made whole if not going away from the situation satisfied.

It requires a way to model another’s thoughts and feelings and trace through the emotional twists and turns to come up with a thought that can be shared and consumed with the least amount of resistance possible. 

Along the way a thought will occur to you. It’s not the answer, but it’s pointing in that direction. Born of personal suffering, it’s centered in a world of selfishness and lack of care, and it is usually the first thing that occurs to you. 

Younger folk often succumb to spilling it out like vomit that can’t be held back, but with experience and mistakes some of us learn to swallow the impulse and create rainbows where people deserve a crock of shit.

The difference is often sharp. 

For instance, a man, a full-grown man, walks in looking for a part that we don’t carry and cannot fathom the undertaking that is matching a belt to one of the hundreds we have on the walls. Without a modern part number we are helpless. Even if the measurements match up, the belts aren’t organized in any sane fashion. 

What I would like to say in this instance, “Have you looked online? Seriously I spent 10 minutes cross-referencing archaic part numbers to come to the ultimately obvious conclusion that we can’t get the part through our channels, but that same part is available for reasonable amounts of money all over the Internet.”

What I do say, “See here is a diagram of your part.” Point at screen. “We can’t get that for you, but if you type in this part number.” Hands customer a sticky note, clearly labeled with the part and part number. “…and go to Google, and then hit search.” 

At this point I’m greeted with a confused look, with the customer referencing my screen and their phone and seeing, maybe for the first time, that they carry a machine that attaches to everyone else’s machines and knows everything. 

It’s not everyday you expand someone’s worldview.

My Evil Plans

Diary entry 1: Wooh! Took forever to make all that candy, but it will be worth it for fat kid souffle.

Diary entry 2: The little bastards fell for it. Time to stoke up the stove!

Diary entry 3: Little fucking bastards. All that work and I end up with burnt robes to show for it.

Diary entry 4: OK. That plan was shit, but boy’o do I have a good one brewing up.

Diary entry 5: Gathered all the ingredients. Just in time to mix it up! I’ll teach that goody-goody princess. 

Diary entry 6: Taste my apple bitch! Hahahahaha. The kingdom is mine!