Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/196134
60 • NOVEMBER 2013 • WORLD FENCE NEWS In remembrance of long-time World Fence News contributing editor Jim Hart, we will occasionally reprint articles from past issues. Here is one of his very first classics from 1986. Sadly, Jim passed away a few years ago, but his unique fence humor lives on. • • • Well, the oddball customers are sure coming out of hibernation. I got a call last week from a guy who wanted an estimate on 400 feet of 48" around a vacant lot uptown. The guy looked worse than I did the time I fell in the cesspool. I ain't so sure he is really able to afford a fence 'cept he shows up on the job site in a new Cadillac and announces he just bought the whole block. So another Howard Hughes is born. Someday, I figure I'm going to learn not to judge a book by its cover! First thing he asks me is, am I afraid of a razor blade? I got three days growth on, he has at least five days worth of chin shrubbery himself. So I says, it's a lost cause; I cut it off, it's back the next day. He says, that's my way of looking at it, too. Now here's what I want in a fence. He says he ain't sure of the property lines yet; surveyor's due any minute, you got time to hang around? Got nuttin' but time, sir, I says. Good boy, he says, and we flop under a shade tree together to wait on the surveyor. I mention that it's an odd fact that most successful fence salesmen have beards. He says, why don't you apply for a federal grant to study the phenomenon? I hear they gave some bloke $2 million to study the sex life of a South American tree toad a few years back. Can't say it benefited anybody but the guy who got money. The surveyor arrives, locates the stakes in about 15 minutes. I hit him "Gimme a 10' double drive; no, make that a 25' roll gate" BY JIM HART, WORLD FENCE NEWS CONTRIBUTING EDITOR IN MEMORIAM up for a copy of his conversion tables. Now I know what them .69's and .88's mean on a customer's plot plan. I tell the surveyor I got to get me a plumb bob, nice chrome job, like his. He asks why. I say "show business." I will look like I know what I'm doing when I "blunder" around looking for buried property stakes. I'll use it along with "surveyor's discretion" when I have to make a fairly accurate guess. He laughs, asks where I got "surveyor's discretion" from. I tell him that's what you're doing now, ain't it? He was guessing at exactly where the stake should be, 'cause some trees were blocking a real accurate sighting. He says, "Quiet, the customer's listening." He was right next to the buried stake he couldn't find. He was about 1/16" off; hit it with the new stake he drove. Gad! I should have such luck when I get involved in the "whose is whose" disputes. Man, that's showmanship. Well, we gets the fence up, and customer shows up in an old pickup truck towing a new $50,000 bass boat. Looks like it's a mile long; a beautiful thing to behold if you're into bass boats. He can't back the boat in through the 10-foot double drives; he takes one gate and post out the first try! I think, holy smoke, he ain't even paid for it yet and he's already tearing it down! He says, don't worry, yer still on the payroll, get me a bigger gate. We widen him out to a 14-footer, and he takes the same post out again. Get me a bigger gate, he says, a BIG one. I says, OK, let's see how much room you really need to park the "Lusitania." We take down 50 feet around the gate site, tell customer to back in and we'll measure just how much room you need and build a gate to fit. He needed 22 feet of opening on his best try, so I suggest a 25-foot roll gate. Customer says get it; he don't even ask how much!! We are about to load up and leave when a woman in the house across the street lets out a scream. My first thought is that one of my crew is peeing in the street. Funny how your mind works on such occasions, ain't it? Well, it turns out she had been trying to call us for three days on the phone for an estimate. The gate works out fine. I give the guy the bill; it's so big it scares me. He don't bat an eye, pulls out a roll of bills that would choke a killer whale. He peels off what I need, plus a little extra, says keep the change! Don't have anything smaller than a 50, he says. He gives the crew some super cold Coors from the boat's ice box. I pass up the cool one; don't need another unplanned round trip to Fort Meyers beach this time of year. Water's too cold! We are about to load up and leave when a woman in the house across the street lets out a scream. My first thought is that one of my crew is peeing in the street. Funny how your mind works on such occasions, ain't it? Well, it turns out she had been trying to call us for three days on the phone for an estimate. My answering service (daughterin-law) said she never reached us, as it turns out. Anyhow, she just happened to look out the window and spots us right across the street. She had been watching us for three days and it never dawned on her that we were fencers, not surveyors! Must be something wrong with our "image." Well, she wants a basket weave fence 70 feet long; can we do it? Why heck yes, I says, all it takes is money. How much you want to spend? You got prices from another fencer? OK, what material is he bidding on? Cypress! Wouldn't recommend it. True, it's rot resistant, but it tends to crack as it dries. I'd recommend pressure-treated pine and paint it. It will warp and crack just like cypress if you don't. She didn't know that. No, the other fellow didn't figure putting a top board on either, is it a good idea? We got into knots, checks and cracks, and for once I didn't sound like a "babbling idiot" in trying to explain different grades of lumber to a customer, who thinks "wood's wood, it's all the same." (I think I'm in trouble. Even I understood what I was saying.) Well, we got the job, under bid it, forgot to include sales tax and mark up on the price. We may make 32 cents "profit" on the labor. But profit's profit, right? That 32 cents could even put us into a higher tax bracket if we ain't careful. Anyway, I loves building basket weaves, it satisfies the "creative demon" that rears up once in a while. It's a welcome change from chain link day in and day out. Besides, if I take long enough on it, the wife will hire someone to mow the 47,500 square feet of grass and ants we call a yard. The leaves from last fall will turn into "mulch" right where they lay, and if it don't rain I won't have to repair the roof and my ol' fence truck's side boards will hold for another day or so. After all, a man's got to take time to smell the flowers along the way!