With friends like that.............................
Okay.......now for my rat story, ha.
Back in the 90s when the then new "cab forward" Chrysler Intrepid came out, I bought one to serve as a company car for our business, actually bought two because the first one served so well. This second one had a bigger motor and the autostick, and special paint. During the discussion we walked out to take a look at the motor. Upon lifting the hood, we observed a very large rat sitting on the warm motor (car had apparently been parked there an hour ago or so). The salesman gasped, we both jumped back, and went back inside.
A few moments later along came a mechanic with a long handle broom. We all watched from behind glass while he opened the hood, and carefully prodded into the motor bay while standing in the "I'm prepared to runn like a rabbit if I need to" position. All of a sudden the rat shot out of the compartment, the mechanic fell backwards, everyone in the showroom gasped audibly, and the rat hopped right across the car lot looking for another warm one, ha ha ha.
A few moments later I found myself at the negotiation table to close the deal. As we closed in on the price, my last move was to advise the salesman "go tell the owner of this dealership, the customer wants the special paint thrown in free"......................"tell him it's because of the rat". He looked at me like it was a friently joke. I said, "I'm serious, go tell him what I said". A few moments later he came back, not smiling, and the special paint charge had been marked off with a recalculation of the total.
I can't think of anything worse than a snake aboard a boat. Putting that snake skin aboard was a real attention getter. The only thing worse might be an infestation of California Barking Spiders. A few years ago we had a business associate (a broker who sold us some development property in Alameda County, CA, on the Okland side of San Francisco Bay) who had a family cottage on Lake Tahoe. He knew all about land costs and networking, but didn't know about architecture, maintenance, and construction. He mentioned he was going to renovate and add an addition to the place. I told him (with a straight face) to really check well for California Barking Spiders, because one or two might not be too bad, but if you get an infestation and they all start barking at night, it can be VERY disconcerting. He said he would. We had a lot of fun with that one
Jerry, glad to hear you have a heart and you're leaving the eggs to hatch. Those little guys will be out there swimming around having a ball soon. Good one.
We'll it's cold out there today, weather has gond from the 80s back to the high 30s. We seized the day yesterday as the temps started to drop and took a spin on the river. I'm at the lake now, and I'll post some photos when I get back to the house (to a computer that will take the download).
regards,
Paul