The Old Coot’s friend is a squeaker.
By Merlin Lessler
My friend Mat, I won’t mention that his last name is Laba,
recently bought a new sofa. Sofa’s cost a lot of money and you want it to be
perfect. It wasn’t. It squeaked, every time he sat or moved on it He had the
store pick it up and take it back to the store and take the squeaks out.
When they brought it back, it still squeaked. So, he told
them to bring a brand new sofa. They did. Guess what? It squeaked. The company escalated
his complaint and sent an expert to his house to figure out what was going on.
She sat on it; it squeaked. She looked down and noticed the coasters under each
leg it was resting on, to protect his new floor. She asked him to remove them.
Then sat on it, no more squeaks. Much to Mat’s chagrin, it was the coasters
that squeaked.
This isn’t a unique experience for Mat. It’s happened
before. Several years ago, I wrote about a similar experience Mat had. I inadvertently
mentioned that his last name was Laba then too. Anyhow, he asked his wife
Linda, to have some copies made for him. When she brought them home he noticed
that they hadn’t copied the back side of the originals. He was irked, to say
the least. He stormed out of the house and demanded that they remake the copies
and told them, “I’m not going to pay for it!” The poor clerk was frightened,
let out a few squeaks (see how I tied that in to the sofa story) apologized
profusely and immediately remade the copies, both sides this time.
When Mat got home and told Linda that he’d rectified the
problem at the office supply store, Linda looked him dead in the eye, (I made
that up; I don’t know how she looked at
him), and said, “I didn’t have the copies made at the office supply store;; I
had them made at the screen printers shop. When you do business with Mat, be
prepared to squeak.
