Apparently, I have this gift. Trouble follows me everywhere. I get kicked out of more places than I can count.
I stopped by a small mom & pop jewelry store today to see if I could get my Palm T3 repaired. It has lost three screws on the slider and the one screw that is left isn’t able to keep the palm’s techno guts from spilling out every time I open it. If I don’t get it fixed, it will probably die of over exposure to elements known as pocket lint.
I walked in the shop and this really huge guy is standing behind the counter surfing the Internet on a laptop. About 20 seconds go by before he looks up and asks “can I help you with something?”
I explained my problem and asked if he had any screws that would be small enough to fix my Palm. At first he said no and then he thought perhaps he had some case screws that would work. So he took my palm over to his work bench and within a couple minutes he had located three screws and had securely fastened them to the slider on my Palm.
There was only one problem. The screws were too long and he had effectively screwed my Palm shut. It no longer opened. I pointed that out to him and then debated out loud with myself as to whether I could live with that or not. It still functioned, but I was used to opening it to see the full screen. I also asked how much it would cost for the 3 nearly microscopic screws. He said “ten dollars”. I decided that I would rather try a couple other options first so I told him I would be back if they didn’t pan out.
I started to hand him my Palm so he could remove the screws and he said “Just take them and go.”
I replied with “but I don’t want them. It’s not fixed.”
He gave me a look of disgust and said “You won’t pay me for the work I just did, so I’m not going to let you waste my time removing them.” He acted like unscrewing them was so labor intensive he might have a heart attack in the process.
Now, I don’t know what his problem was, but I am thinking he was thinking one of three things. Perhaps he thought since I was female that he could bully me into paying him. Or maybe he thought I was some punk kid who would break down and give in (I get mistaken for a teenager frequently). The other possibility here is that I had just come from the dentist and the entire right side of my head was numb, causing me to stumble over my words just a bit so maybe he thought I was intoxicated or stupid. I was neither. If anything, I was rather shocked by his going from nice to nasty in less than two seconds.
I was half tempted to break the “Be Nice” rule, but I thought better of it and instead I smiled sarcastically and said “Ok then, give ME the screwdriver and I will remove them myself.”
He leaned forward slightly and said “No. Just get out of my shop and don’t come back.”
I think at this point he thought he had me because he had screwed my Palm shut tight and he knew I didn’t want to leave it that way. Little did he know that at home in my super geek toolbox I have about a zillion tiny little screwdrivers that would easily undo his two minutes of hard labor.
So I said “Are you serious?”
He said “I most certainly am and I don’t want to see you back in my shop ever again.”
I raised my eyebrows at him in utter disbelief, stuffed the Palm in my pocket, picked up my car keys and wallet and headed for the door. Just before stepping through it I turned and said “Don’t worry, I won’t ever shop here again. And I will make sure other people don’t make that mistake either. You are unbelievable.”
I stepped into my van which was parked right next to his open door and as I started the ignition, my CD player kicked in with Bon Jovi singing “Have A Nice Day.” Since the shop owner had his windows and door propped open, I rolled down my windows and jacked the volume as loud as it would go. Then took my sweet time backing out of his parking lot. I don’t know if he got the message, but it made me feel better.
So to summarize, I went to a jewelry shop to get some screws and the shop owner ended up screwing himself. (Oh C’mon – how can I pass up a screwy punch line like that?)
I read somewhere that when you run out of things to say on your blog that you should just make stuff up to keep it going. I’m telling you, you will never find made up stories here. I don’t have to make anything up! Crazy things like this happen to me every week.
