Cheapness

There’s a better picture to go with this title – but since I don’t have a Blackberry Curve yet, I didn’t get a chance to take a picture at the Watsonville Fly In that we went to. It was much colder than we anticipated and Sal was finding that the gobs of sunscreen he had on was not providing much warmth. No jacket packed. Sal was even saying “jacket” as we were walking to the entrance.

The attendant told me that they had kids sweatshirts inside. So instead of turning around, we forged onward. Still hearing a little dude demand a jacket. We get to the booth. All sold out of children’s sizes. Not many other booths selling clothes – we circled around and came back. Okay – we’ll buy an adult sweatshirt – we just need to keep him warm.

They only have one left. A Large. Whatever. This is life when traveling without Moms. But – it was on sale – 10 bucks (instead of 25) cause it had a torn cuff. I think that Sal was instantly comforted as my heart warmed up 100%. It was nice picture, once we rolled the sleeves up to the armpits. Sal was wearing shorts too – so the overhang of the sweatshirt was actually really good.

The airshow was fun – the F-18’s didn’t want to go home, repeatedly doing fly bys interrupting the Marines who were talking about their Harriers. Trying to talk about their Harriers. I guess the F-18’s were from the Navy and there’s a little rivalry going on? It was all kind of loud. Afterburners especially.

Another photo op maybe was Sal jumping down out of some transport helicopter in his adult L sweatshirt. Curve release date is supposed to be next week. Or the week after. It has been the same gossip story for the last 3 weeks. Every week I fall for it.

But that isn’t what I really wanted to talk about.

I’ve wanted to ship a package for a while now. But then Catherine saw this dude on the cover of the San Jose Metro and if I could work things out – then I could send two things in a package and that’d save me some postage.

The dude is this author that I used to work with. I’m not particularly fond of his writing, but others are. As commented, when he signed the first book for us, he didn’t get Catherine’s name right. And when we asked him to fix it, he asked us if we wanted to buy another book. Ha ha. No thanks, funny joke though.

Wasn’t a joke. He just crossed out the bad version and wrote the corrected version above the crossed out one. His books are that freaking precious. Catherine once went to get a picture autographed from a film star for me – and she put an ‘h’ in my name. Catherine corrected her and without a moment’s hesitation a new autograph was being started. Those are my two data points. I don’t know what it says about industries, cause I don’t generalize or stereotype. I just know I have my favorites for a reason.

Anyway – so I email this guy cause I thought he’d be flattered that someone would notice his picture and then send a note a long. And after a gentle bit of ribbing (hey, were we expecting pure flattery?) I asked him if he could send a personalized copy of the book to a friend – as they are big fans and would get a kick out of it. I offered to paypal him some money for the book, shipping and handling and time and trouble.

All I got back in response was a time and date for his next book signing. Jesus. I’m not vain enough to think that it was cause he wanted to meet up again. Plus, it didn’t say any of that in the reply. And I would have gone, except I had to drive my mother down to Los Angeles on that day.

So – where are we now? An original package delayed and no book. And spite around the book now too.

Being cheap has its perks…but I guess it doesn’t always get you friends. Or sweatshirts that fit. Maybe it builds character though.

[editor’s note: my favorite part of writing this was finding the link by doing a search for “world’s finest crap barry eisler” – 2nd result]