Yesterday marked my one-year anniversary in the exciting and growing field of retail hardware. Many thought I didn't have what it takes, but I proved them wrong. All kidding aside, this hardware gig is the best job Ive ever had, at least from a quality of life standpoint. The boss asked me "where I see myself in five years"? I'm not a 'see myself' kind of guy, especially at my age. Alive in five years is about my only aspiration. Everything else will take care of itself. I have posted about my friend Bill at the store before, but for the new readers or the hard of remembering or the in-one-ear-and-out-the-other folks, as it applies most things I say, I will repeat. Bill is the hardware god. He has a legion of elderly fans who will only take advice from Bill or from others, with Bill's approval. Sometimes his adoring public can be a pain in my butt. I was paged yesterday by a cashier named Sharon, to answer a phone call from someone asking about portable heaters. The store telephone calls are answered by the cashiers and then are directed to the appropriate person, in this case me. When I picked up the phone to answer, an elderly female voice told me that she was being helped by Sharon. I explained that I would answer her question. No dice, she wanted to talk to Sharon. I explained again and asked how I could help her? Her response, "I guess you can't", and she slammed down the phone. Perhaps ten minutes later a young fellow came into the store and with the help of Sharon, sought me out. "I'm trying to help an angry old woman get a portable heater", he told me. "Funny, I just got hung up on by an angry old woman looking for a heater." "That's her", he replied. We went to find her a heater. She had a specific heater in mind, one that matched the one she has now. God knows how long ago she bought her current one. While we looked, I got paged to the phone again and was told that it was same the old woman. The young guy picked up the call and talked to her about our progress. Eventually, we found what we thought was a suitable heater. When I left him, he was on his cell phone telling her that he couldn't find the exact one she wanted, but that he had found a similar one. Ten minutes later he was back, asking to speak to Bill. The old gal wouldn't accept the heater unless Bill said it was okay. Bill spoke to her about the situation and with his blessing, all was well. Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgmental and cranky