For most people, leaving work on a Friday is a good thing in and of itself. But for me yesterday, it was just the beginning of a pretty decent trip home.
First, I stopped at my favorite computer store. Since it was payday, I was curious to see if they had anything I really wanted. While I was there, one of the guys who works there asked me a rather odd question.
“Are you still helping out that friend of yours with the church home-schooling thing?”
“Yeah, when I can. Why?”
“I got this monitor I just can’t sell. It’s ugly as sin, and nobody wants it. It’s been here a couple months. I contacted the company who sold it to us, and they agreed to give us credit for it, but since then they’ve disappeared from the face of the earth. It’s just sitting here, collecting dust and taking up space. Think you friend could use it?”
I looked it over. He was, if anything, understating the case. It was beige, lumpy, old, slightly discolored, and as the saying goes, not only fell out of the ugly tree, but hit every branch on the way down. And as the piece de resistance, stuck to the bottom of the bezel was a big “CompUSA” badge.
But that was just the shell. It was wrapped around nineteen inches of CRT goodness — and it was mine (well, Candy’s) for the taking. I stuffed it into the Shaggin’ Wagon before he came to his senses. Candy, get out the church’s receipt book…
Then, once I got home to Manchester, I swung by our local comic book shop, run by a trio of good guys. Nothing grabbed my attention, but as I walked in one of the owners called me over.
“Hey, Jay. I was going through a bunch of old stuff, and found this. You were the first person I thought of.” He handed over some stapled, typewritten pages.
It was a comic book script. Captain Marvel #1, to be precise, written by Peter David. And at the bottom was PAD’s signature.
“Whoa… SOLD. How much?”
“Don’t worry about it. It’s yours. I know you’ll appreciate it.”
The lesson, boys and girls, is it pays to be polite and friendly. All sorts of folks are susceptible to sucking up, not just police officers.
Disclaimer: while both the folks at MicroSeconds and Double Midnight are aware of my blogging, it is only in a vague sort of sense and certainly not with any intention of getting a plug here — although one of the DMers did once compliment me on my piece on pimps…
AUGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! SIGNED by PD!!!! well at the right convention, your personal investment is assured
I have three Pentium computers ranging from 200 to 350 MHZ that I don’t use anymore. I used to give such things to my church, but even they don’t want such old stuff any more. I hate to see them go to the dump as well as having to pay a fee to rid myself of them. Guess I need to find some sucker (good cause) to take them off my hands.
I think PAD is a very good writer. Very funny guy. Am I the only guy that thinks that his use of humor sometimes distracts from the overall story though? Sort of like an action movie that is hampered by the characters constantly spouting one liners.
“Which is?”
“WITCHS?! Where?!”
That still gets me everytime.
I can one-up you. I left work on Friday with all my stuff! I had resigned on Monday effective the end of the month but they decided, four days later, to let me walk.
Oh, and I still get paid through the end of the month? Bonus!
I did some research at my college’s library on Thursday and Friday. As I was leaving Friday, not only did they charge me student rates on my copies (saving 10 cents each for 41 copies), the guy running the archive collection gave me a documentary about an old football coach I had been trying to track down for two years. Just gave it to me.
Must have been something in the air that day.