Posts RSS 327 Posts

Jones Hardware

Jones Hardware had been the dominant building on Main street
for almost a century. Robert Jones the proprieter, was
the great, great grandson of Orval Jones, an Irish imigrant
who arrived in the New World in the late 1840s. After serving
in the Civil War, Orval founded Jones Hardware and eventually
passed the business on to his son Johanas. Almost a hundred
years later it looked as though Robert Jones was about to
carry on the family tradition yet again with his son Bobby.
“Im going to retire one of these days so I can play more
golf and youll have to carry on the Family name concerning
hardware in this town Bobby”, Robert explained to
his son Bobby who’d just turned 17. Bobby liked three
things in this world, pretty girls, fast cars and the hardware
business. During this particular Saturday afternoon
Robert was showing his son Bobby an assortment of industrial
metal files that had just come in with the weekly inventory
shipment. As he was putting them on display he asked his
son “Know the proper name for this one Bobby?”
“Yeah Dad, thats a rat-tail file”. “Ok
what about this one son?” “Thats a half-moon
file Dad”. “How about this one Bobby?”
Bobby hesitated and finally said “Gee Dad Im not sure”.
“Its called a flat-bastard” said Robert. “Its
a….a..what Dad?” asked Bobby. “Yes son,
thats the proper name, flat-bastard, see how its flat on
both sides?” The phone rang and Robert went to answer
it, while he was talking on the phone Bobby looked at the
strange files, sure enough “Flat Bastard”
was printed clearly on the package. “That was your
mother on the phone son, her car has a flat tire so why dont
you lock-up tonight and that way I can leave now to go help
your mother befor traffic backs up.” “You bet
Dad!” Bobby loved it when he got to close up shop at
night and he loved dealing with the customers as well. But
apparently no one needed any hardware supplies that afternoon
and the last 1/2 hour dragged on. Then at 5 minutes to five-o-clock
Tiny West came into the store. Tiny , a huge and rather earthy
man , owned the local machine shop and was a frequent visitor
to Jones Hardware. “Hi Tiny, what can I help you with
today?” asked Bobby. “Need some machine files”
said Tiny. Bobby led Tiny to the aisle displaying the files
and as Tiny was sorting through them, Bobby said proudly
“Well Tiny, weve got machine files from 6 inche all
the way up to 20, everything from course to fine and weve
just gotten a new shipment of rat-tails, and oh, I almost
forgot, would one of these work for you, one of these Flat-Bastards?”
“Naw said Tiny, I think one of these half-moon cock-suckers
will do just fine”.

Comments are closed.