Saturday, April 11, 2009

Inanimate Objects Are Our Real Enemies


My dad was an insurance agent. He wasn't the kind that sat in an office; he went out and beat the bushes.

I don't know if anybody sells insurance now like he did then, but he used to go to people's homes and convince them that they needed life insurance. And what seems even more odd now, he didn't wait in his office for the premium checks to arrive; he went out and collected the premiums each week from his customers, usually in cash.

As I write this it occurs to me that some gentle readers may be thinking, "Are you sure he wasn't in the mob?" I'm sure. The first ten years of his insurance career he spent with Life of Georgia. The last twenty-five, he worked for National Standard Life Insurance Company, and its home office was in Orlando. Sometimes he called it Nasty Standard, but probably not around the home office in Orlando.

His routine was the same every week. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday he was out selling and collecting, usually until well after dark. Thursday morning was the last of the selling and collecting for the week, and that afternoon and late into the night he worked on his weekly report. Friday all the men went to a district meeting in Daytona.

Working on the report involved, among other things, sitting for hours at the dining room table with an adding machine adding up what he had and what he was supposed to have. Sighs of exasperation and muttering were common. The adding machine was one of those old mechanical types with an impressive array of keys, and it required you to pull the crank on the side after each entry. With each pull the adding machine went "ka-chunk, ka-chunk", and the wooden dining chair went "creak."

Daddy was a big man. I don't know that he ever weighed less than 250 pounds while I was a kid. That wooden chair had assuredly been earning its keep, but its "creak" was no idle threat. After one particularly vigorous pull, the chair could bear no more, and it all came down with Daddy on top of it. He leapt to his feet in the way that a large man can and began stomping on the remains of the chair, reducing it to even smaller splinters.

Now you may think this was simple rage at and vengeance upon a piece of furniture that had collapsed under him. Rage was no doubt a component of the display, but I know there was a deeper meaning and purpose. That stomping was also for the benefit of those other chairs sitting around the table. One of them would soon be pressed into service, and he wanted them all to see that no repeat performance of the first chair's failure would be tolerated.

I don't know whether the adding machine was paying attention.

4 comments:

  1. David - these are the best. I so much enjoy these entries on your blog. Your humor and insights are such a delight to me! Thanks so much for sharing.

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  2. HA! :D

    That story is hilarious! That brings back so many memories of grandpa sitting in that chair with that crazy adding machine. ha! VERY funny!

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