But doggone it........ it was funny!
I have an old friend (going back to my college days) named Dave S. In the 40+ years I've known him, I can't even estimate the number of laughs I can associate with him. The man is a virtual magnet for humor. He has a quick and razor-sharp wit. The strange thing about him is, even dull humorless people, when in his presence, become suddenly funny.
He has lived here in St Louis County his entire 62 years, and is a walking Wikipedia of the area. Whenever I have a question about the area, he's the one I call.
Since I am in the process of doing some renovations on the new house, I called on him as my 'Yellowbook'. I was looking for tile, cabinets, electrical supplies, etc., and knew his help would be invaluable.
The story starts at Hood's, a discount building supplies company. As we were walking around the store, we came upon a big display of toilets on sale. Since he was planning a DIY bathroom renovation for his home, he had been pricing toilets and was shocked at the low price Hood's had on these. He said the price was less than half of the ones he'd been looking at. He was going to get one.
As we were loading it on the flat truck to go to the checkout, he noticed the words, 'hecho en Mexico' (made in Mexico) on the back of the water tank.
Well, Dave is a 'made in the USA' type of guy, willing to pay a little extra for stuff made here in America. So he was quite uncomfortable finding himself in a Jewish Dilemma*. After listening to about 10 minutes of his ranting, I tried to lighten the situation by saying maybe he should try it out for size, to see if his flabby, white, American ass fit. He saw no humor in that. We went through the checkout and loaded it in the truck.
On the way home, we decided to stop at the local watering hole (no pun intended) to get a sandwich. The place was crowded with old regulars, and wouldn't you know it, the topic of conversation was: Offshoring of American jobs, and how most everything we buy is from China, Korea, Mexico, etc, etc. This only served to stoke Dave's ranting.
"Tell me about it", Dave pipes in, "I just bought a Mexican toilet at Hood's".
"What's that?", asks the straight-faced bartender, "A five gallon bucket?".
*Jewish Dilemma -- Ham 50% off.
Forgive Me, Lord,
Brother Tim
Friday, May 29, 2009
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10 comments:
That was funny as hell! I would have laughed my ass off.
Jim--
Yeah, now everytime I see a 5 gal plastic bucket, I think about that. :)
i find it amusing that so many people want to buy american. where have they been for the last 20 years and before? i remember when everything was made in taiwan. my dad used to get so mad. then, mexico; and now, china again. or india or sri lanka.
the thing for me is this- i don't begrudge these poor folks these menial jobs- they can feed their families. we, are the richest country on the planet with allegedly the best education- why haven't we designed ourselves better paying jobs that are more creative?
your post was funny :) i was blending the lines between yours and mine- in one comment :) mine- not so much funny :)
Betmo--
I'm with you there, but the Corporatists' agenda is not to provide them menial jobs so they can feed their families, it's to increase already obscene profits. It is counter-productive, as it is driving 98% of the world's population into poverty. And we are included in that 98%.
I'll be snickering every time I see one too, Thanks! Next time IO tell my son to grab my bucket I'll tell him to get the Mexican toilet!
Mexicans complain about jobs going to Asia.
Ren--
Just as there is always someone smarter or stronger, there will always be someone who will work cheaper. These problems could be eliminated with world-wide socialism*.
*I'll probably get lambasted for that remark. :)
Outsourcing is a problem everywhere. My husband also lost his job that way - so they say... and claim to have saved a fortune, but the truth is: already with in the first few months they spent 4 million more than he would have cost them. So it was just a dirty trick to get rid of him, because he wasn't willing to what some people wanted him to do and isn't easily manipulated. But what the heck, he found work again - completelty different branch and the pay is not what he used to get but that's something you learn to live with. Either you've got the guts to stand up for the truth and then that has consequences - including getting your body and your finances messed or you keep your mouth shut - but who can live with that?!
Anyway, you can't really outsource a position like the one my husband has had, so naturally they're not well off... but the bottom line is: you've gotta be flexible no matter what comes your way and always have a fall back plan - or two..., otherwise you're fucked in life.
It's easy to think "things shouldn't be that way..." but they are so the sooner or later we realize that they sooner we can deal with the facts!
Still Brother Tim - your post was funny, loved the sense of humor!
Also the pics of your compound are interesting. Housepricing is interesting too! Wow! That definitely was cheap! But do not feel guilty, you haven't wripped anybody off, the realestate market is only bouncing back to normal. porperties have really been overpriced before!
We bought our farm just when the real estate market was at its peak, but I still don't regret it. believe it or not, the price has gone up - in spite of the financial crisis! Well that has to do with the renovations that we have done and the fact that this is an area where still many people wanna move to and frankly in Denmark you can only make one mistake on the realestate market and that is not to buy! Because everything will increase in value unless you're doing something totally stupid, like buying a renovated property in an area where prices are sky-high to begin with!
Nice to see what the surrounding look like, but I must say that third picture had me thinking you'
re using a scanner to check your visitors... kind of reminded me of the Louvre, when we were in Paris... security checking everybody and the bags... so what do you do? I always carry a knife, but this time it for once was in my bag (I usually never carry a bag, but that day we had a lot of water with us...)Anyway sneaked the knife back in to my pocket, where it usually is and walked around all that stuff and nobody noticed anything. So much for security-BS!
My My Brother Tim!
Brother Tim:
here's an award for you and when you see the picture, you know why!!!
Don't you think Wally would have approved?!
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