Sunday, August 14, 2011

Day CCCXLI

Americano

     Because I was an Americano, he wanted me to help him close the deal. He had already sold it, and done a lot of work on it too. All he needed was for the owner to sign the work order, so he could get paid.

     Patel wasn’t stupid, he knew what was up, and until Pedro installed something that didn’t exist, he wouldn’t sign anything. The funny thing is that Pedro’s peeps were so sure the gadget existed, they did a lot of wiring, and installed a lot equipment without a signed agreement. Pedro wanted to get paid, but he couldn’t collect a dime because of the work order. He was in a Catch 22 nightmare.

    “Don Pedro how could ya do sompen so dumb?”

    “I sure los Americanos had the gadget somewhere…it was a big deal, a lot of money, hijo. I invested in a lot of equipment too…did work, and now I can’t collect. My lawyer say I don’t have a case.”

     I wanted to laugh because he was a very smart guy; he had been a lawyer in Cuba before Castro; and now he was in a laughable predicament. As much as I wanted to help him, I couldn’t. Alone in my car I remembered something my mom once told me…

     “Cubans speak three languages...Spanish, English ana lotta ca ca.”

     I broke out into a loud guffaw, I cracked up for about five or ten minutes, I couldn’t stop laughing, and tears were running down my face. I guess being in sales you sometimes hear sales people talk a lot of ca ca. Case in point- used car sales peeps. There was nothing I could do, I wasn’t Houdini nor a genie so I left it like that. That Indian put one over on one Cuban. He got a lot of free VCRs, and other equipment, which he was using to make big profits with no investment.

No comments:

Post a Comment