So this happened…

During the last hour of the last day of work at my last job ever, I got a call from a customer who wanted to come by and take a look at a Chrysler Town and Country van.

“What time do you close?” she asked .

“6:00, ” I said. But if you get here before six I will be happy to show it to you.”

“OK. We are on our way.”

It had been a slow day and Gidget, the sales manager, was sitting on the other side of the partition with two other sales people shooting the breeze. A little time passed and I thought I better tell Gidget I had a customer coming.

“No you don’t!” She protested.

“Yes I do!” I insisted.

A little more time passed and no customer. The phone rings.

“Hi! This is Sasha. Sorry, we got tied up but we are on our way now!”

“OK, good. See you when you get here!”

Gidget yells from behind the partition. “Is that your customer?”

“Yep!”

“Well she better get here quick, I’m not staying here all night!”

“She’s on here way.”

A little more time passes and no customer.

“Ben, I’m going to kick your ass!”

About this time the front windows of the showroom light up with the headlights of a car.

“There she is now,” I said, as I started towards the front door.

“You better sell that car in 20 minutes,” Rod, one of the other sales people says. “Cause were going home at six!”

“I’ve done it before,” I said with confidence.

So, I go out the front door and meet and greet the customer and show her the car.

“Yep, this is the car I want!” She says. How long will it take to tell me what you will give me for my trade?”

“Well, let’s go in, and see if we can put a deal together.”

So we went in and sat at my desk and Gidget looked at her car and we put some numbers together and agreed on price. We had a deal! The only thing was we had to do was secure financing. So I took a credit application and told the customer we would work it out on Monday for them. She was happy and left. We all got out of there by 6:00 pm but I had to come back on Monday evening to deliver the car!

Ha! That’s what I love about the car business! Just when I thought I was getting out, they pulled me back in again! It’s all good. The customer got the car she wanted and I made another sale before I left and I left on a good note and an up beat!

Now I am gone and happy as a lark!

 

 

 

 

 

 

There was no clear winner in last night’s debate. But there was a clear loser. CNBC. The debate performance by the moderators was a complete disaster. They could not control the candidates, they talked over each other and they asked inane questions.

Trump held his ground and was not as bombastic as usual. He got in a good zinger against John Kasich early on.

Kasich sounded like an angry old man as he denounced the others in a strident tirade. Jeb is fading fast and will drop out before much longer. He is becoming an embarrassment. He is just not a good debater.

Cruz was his usual obsequious self ordering first a tequila then a Colorado Brownie, then offering to drive everyone home afterwards. He had a moment when he attacked the moderators for being less than substantive with their questioning to loud and approving applause.

Chris Christie looked good but continues to be a bully. Don’t expect him to be around much longer. Ben Carson was catatonic as usual and almost put his own self to sleep with his slow delivery and off the wall answers that went completely unchallenged. He outright lied about being involved with that supplement company.

Carly Fiorina absurdly claimed Hilary Clinton’s policies were demonstrably harmful to women. She speaks with a machine gun like cadence twitching her head side to side like she is spitting out bullet shells and blinking her eyes with every utterance.

Rand Paul is quickly fading into oblivion. He was positioned last in line at the edge of the stage as befits his poll numbers. He is becoming largely irrelevant.

Marco Rubio was prepared, on point, and proved to be an effective counter-puncher. He pretty much put Jeb Bush away in one of their exchanges. He is emerging as one possible contender when and if Trump and Ben Carson self destruct. I wouldn’t count The Donald out, however, he just might go the distance.

Mike Huckabee didn’t get much talk time. He is still Huck the Huckster, selling books and snake oil.

All in all pretty much of a debacle but made for fascinating reality TV. It is shame the fate of the country hangs in the balance.

Sad Stories of the Death of Kings is a book of vignettes by Barry Gifford about a boy growing up in Chicago in the 1950’s and 60’s. I’m sure the boy,  Roy is a stand in for the author himself.

I liked the stories very much and I can relate to Roy in many ways as we are roughly the same age now. Barry Gifford is a talented writer who has penned some of my favorite stories which later  became movies: Wild at Heart and Lost Highway (both David Lynch Films).

Gifford is reminiscent of two other writers I love: Nelson Algren and Charles Bukowski.

I am a great believer of synchronicity and love to connect the dots. In the story, “Roy’s First Car,” Barry details a 1955 Buick Century with a Dyna-Flo transmission which the boy Roy purchases for  $300. My own first car was a 1955 Buick Century with a Dyna-Flo transmission which I purchased for $300 from a salesman by the name of Grundy Hayes at Broadway Chevrolet in 1965, in Louisville, Kentucky. I will never forget that day or that purchase. Now it shows up again in another man’s book of stories in a different time and place.

How’s that for a coincidence?  When I read that passage it about blew my mind! It gets weirder but that’s grist for the mill for another story.

For God’s sake, let us sit on the ground and tell the sad stories of the death of kings.

There is nothing more disheartening that endless futile labor or doing something you absolutely loathe or have a fundamental problem with. As you might recall, Sisyphus was condemned to an eternity of rolling a rock up a steep mountain incline only to have it roll back to the valley again once he got it to the top. On his way back down the mountain, he had to think about his existential position.

Bobby Jindal was born but not bred in Baton Rouge, LA. on June 10, 1971. His full name is Piyush Jindal. He was born six months after his parents arrived from Punjab, India. He is an american citizen by reason of his birth as is so prescribed by the 14th amendment to the US Constitution. I think it ironic, to say the very lesat, that our Mr. Jindal would be anti-immigration or that he would support the repeal of the 14th amendment.

Mr. Jindal is a very smart man and once accused the Republicans of being memebrs of the “Stupid Party.” He is not acquitting himself very well of late for someone who has come so far and risen so high.