Category: Bo, Jack, Mark — and Donna

Donna, Will You Please Be Quiet!

It was “meet the teachers” night at an East Wake High School [near Raleigh, N.C.] PTA meeting and the class was full of parents, many of whom my wife, Donna, and I knew.

We were sitting near the front, listening to one of our sons’ science teacher.  He was talking about drugs and he mentioned a new one that helped control the herpes simplex virus.

Donna immediately turned to me and whispered, loud enough to be heard by everyone for several rows, “Pat, did you hear that! They found a way to control herpes! Isn’t that wonderful!”

According to the studies in Elisakit.net Herpes simplex virus types 1 and 2 can cause sores on the mouth [type 1] or in the genital area [type 2]. Donna was talking about type 1, fever blisters –cold sores–  which one of our sons, Jack, had from time to time.   Fever blisters are spread by sharing a fork or a toothbrush, or kissing.  Other people may have suspected that Donna was talking about the other kind of herpes.

I ignored her.

Donna must have thought I didn’t hear her because she raised her voice: “Oh, Pat, isn’t that great news about herpes!”

Jack Stith
Jack Stith

Everybody in the room heard her.

I kept looking straight ahead. No, no, I don’t know that woman blabbing about a drug to control sexually transmitted infections.

And then, suddenly, Donna understood.

“Jack, I meant good for Jack,” she stammered. “He gets fever blisters.”

Yea, sure, lady.

Coming Monday: River Music

 

Two Poodled

To build a successful business you have to do good work at a fair price.  And you have to do what you say you’re going to do, keep your word. 

Mark Stith, roofer par excellence
Mark Stith, roofer par excellence

That’s the way my son, Mark, runs his company, Roofcrafters.

But to get a signed contract, Mark told me, it helps a lot if the customer plain old likes you.  So you try to make a good impression, he said.  You look customers in the eye. You speak courteously .  And, if you get an opportunity, you two poodle them.

Two poodle?  Yea, it’s a new expression — you heard it here first.

Mark went to a woman’s house to give her an estimate and she met him at the door carrying two poodles.

Two poodles!
Two poodles!

“I see you have two poodles,” Mark said to her.

That’s really all he had to say.

She told him all about her sweet poodles.  He listened attentively.  And then she hired him to re-roof her house.

Coming Friday: Cotton Mouth