(re-run)
This isn’t a Bible story. This is me telling you that seventeen years ago, I agreed to take a large antique dresser as a consignment piece from a Girl Scout leader friend. I sent my helper dude to her house to have him load it up and deliver it to my store. I paid the dude $35.00 for his efforts, knowing that I could recoup that cost from my half of the sale price. It was done on a handshake since I didn’t really do consignment. This was a special favor for a friend, the sweetest woman you’d ever meet.
Except that didn’t happen. The husband, whom I had not met before, came storming into my shop two weeks later and demanded to know why I hadn’t sold the dresser yet. As it turned it, it was inherited from one of his dead relatives, not the wife’s.
He criticized the price and ordered me to mark it down. I explained to him that the price was higher so that I would have room to dicker with the buyer, which is a common practice in antique shops. He wasn’t having it and informed me that he was going to take the dresser back and sell it himself. He was loud, he was rude, and he was a bit scary. I was alone or maybe with a teenaged employee, so I said, “Fine, take the dresser.”
If I hadn’t liked his wife so much, I would’ve demanded the $35.00 back. But the guy wasn’t worth it. He was bordering on asshole status, and you know, life is just too short.
The next day, the dude returned with a truck and took the dresser away. I don’t think I was there. I hope he wasn’t too rude to my employee.
Water under the bridge. I didn’t see that woman or her Girl Scout daughter for several years. Then the adult daughter showed up in my chorus two and half years ago as a new member, since the new director had been hers in both grade school, middle school and high school. Everything was fine. I had long since let go of the stressful scene her dad had created in my shop.
Now, I find out that the guy is going to join the chorus. The good news is that he doesn’t remember me, and when my friend introduced her husband to me years after the inherited dresser scene, he didn’t recognize me as the shop owner. I sure recognized him, but thought better of saying, “Yes, I know who you are. You were rude to me in my shop over your relative’s furniture. You cost me $35.00 (which was worth a lot more fifteen years ago). You bullied me into letting you out of the consignment agreement with your wife.”
So, I will say hello to him at chorus and pretend that I haven’t seen his ugly side.
After all, life is short, and the chorus needs male voices. Plus, I still like his family.
FIRST DATE, WORST DATE EVER! 