Tightwads, toilets, and other fiascos
I guess I’ve always been a people watcher, I find our species fascinating.
We dart about like ants, rushing here and there and swarming together like bees in a hive. Isn’t it funny how you can drive into the petrol station and suddenly everyone arrives at the same time and then they’re gone. Synchronicity?
I notice this at work all the time.
The best thing about my job is the customers. It is much like Coronation Street really and you catch up on conversations you had with them the last time they were in.
One old guy I hadn’t seen for over a year came in and I said to him: ‘‘How’s that coffee table you were making coming on, how did it turn out?’’ He said: ‘‘That’s a while back, man you’ve got a good memory’’.
An elderly Yugoslav couple came in to work for many years and his wife always did the purchasing and he paid for the items. He always had a wallet full of money and always held his wallet below the edge of the counter so I couldn’t see how much he had in there. I would always have him on about being the richest man in the cemetery when he died, and that would make his wife chuckle every time.
As he was drawing the money out one day I yelled out: ‘‘Look out!’’ and he threw his wallet in the air in fright, his money flying everywhere. He said: ‘‘What? What is it?’’ I said: ‘‘Oh sorry, I thought I saw a moth fly out of your wallet’’. His wife almost cried with laughter as he stood expressionless, finally giving me half a grin.
A rather large Maori lady came in to work one day wanting to use the toilet and I pointed the way, mentioning not to rock on the pan as it was a bit wobbly. We were having smoko at the time and a few minutes later there was an almighty crash!
A few moments later she briskly walked past and said: ‘‘I think I broke your fulla’s toilet’’.
Well she certainly did that, the pan was split in half, how she didn’t cut herself badly I don’t know, but I was left to clean up the mess and replace the toilet pan. Lucky we had spares upstairs.
I had a very abrupt man come into work one day who wanted to buy a bath for a trough. He considered himself a bit of a macho man and wanted no help in getting it down off the pallet racking outside. I tried to mention it was a third full of slimy green water but he was not interested in listening, he just wanted to show his lady friend how strong he was.
Well he crabbed it over to the edge and finally got the point of balance to slide it off the racking, and in a split second he wore the slimy contents all over himself.
Of course I wasn’t standing anywhere near it, I’d gone off to serve another customer, but just far enough away to see the fiasco unfold.
‘‘That’s what I was trying to tell you,’’ I said, laughing under my breath as I disappeared into the building.
I had a man come into work for a shower door one day and after showing him the choices he had, he picked out the one he wanted.
‘‘Don’t you want to get the blessing from the wife?’’ I suggested.
‘‘I make the decisions’’ he grinned back, ‘‘she has nothing to do with it’’.
‘This is going to be interesting,’ I thought. He said he’d be in Saturday morning to pick it up.
Well Saturday morning came and sure enough in he walked led by his wife.
‘This isn’t a good sign,’ I thought, ‘she’s the boss!’
Sure enough she led him up the stairs and as he pulled the shower door out of the rack he said: ‘‘Well this is it, this is the one we want.’’
‘‘I don’t like it,’’ she said, and that was that.
Meanwhile I’m at the top of the stairs peeping over the top and he sees me.
‘‘Well that’s it,’’ I said. ’’It’s all over,’’ and disappeared out of sight leaving them to it. Puke Ariki cares for more than 110,000 images in the Swainson/ Woods Collection that were generated by the New Plymouth based businesses, Swainson’s Studios and Bernard Woods Studio, between 1923 and 1997.
Many of the photographs are still unidentified.
Check our efforts out online at http://vernon.npdc.govt.nz/ simpleSearch.jsp
If you can help identify this week’s photo, please phone the Taranaki Research Centre, 06 759 6060, or email the team at images@npdc.govt.nz