The Old Grouch has discovered E-Bay. So far he’s collected a talking fish, an Elvis bust and the best of the Dean Martin show on VHS. I walked him through the process the first few times. Now he’s out there alone in the cyber swap meet, sifting for treasures.
About eleven thirty this morning I watched […]

“Oh shit,” Jay said. “My nipples are on fire.” He rubbed his chest. “That damn dry cleaners put starch in my shirts again. Damn it, I tell them over and over, no starch. I’m allergic as a sonofabitch.”
Jay is a large black man. The sight of him skipping to the fiery nipple dance put the […]

There was no blog yesterday. I’ve been suffering from narcolepsy, or some other ailment that makes me sleep eleven hours back to back, punctuated only by the rustlings of my fifty year old bladder.
Enough medical talk.
The Moonie girls have resurfaced. Our little car lot is on the border of metropolitan Knoxville. There’s a […]

Happy labor day. Don’t do anythng stupid. There will be more disturbing imagery tomorrow.

Yesterday the temperature hit one hundred. Nobody was stupid enough to come out and stand on the semi-liquid asphalt. Jerking around a car salesman is not worth dying for. We were bored and cranky. We snapped at each other like feral Chihuahuas I had to do something to break the bad mojo, so […]

Bob Love was one of the most decent men I’ve ever met but the first day I worked with him he pissed me off. He just left a Toyota dealership. I was trying to sell a used Sienna van so I asked him a few technical questions. Being the sponge-brain I am, the information evaporated […]

Sunday afternoon. I’ll be in Nashville next week for training. We’re learning new product lines. As soon as I find a wi-fi spot I’ll be posting from Music City.
Stay tuned.
Paul

This is a verbatim transcript of a tape recording I made six years ago. The salesman was a well dressed transient from New England. He made his way south to sell time shares in Florida. He stopped in our little corner of the woods to make a quick buck.
Imagine this delivered in a high […]

Time Off From the Old Car Lot
The dealership where I currently work sells premium American motor cars that get about zero miles per gallon. Times are rough at the old store. It’s a ghost town. The factory reps are breathing down their necks. I’m taking a few days off to evaluate my options and […]

The Burke Manifesto
There’s a note pad and pencil by my bed. I woke up in the small hours last night and scratched out a note. This happens a lot. Sometimes, the next morning I find nonsense scribbles. In dream haze they seem like golden drops of wisdom. In the harsh reality of day I find […]