Better than Behle?s Scotch Boutique - Posted by Cletus’ friend
Posted by Cletus’ friend on April 24, 2006 at 14:49:37:
The distinguished John Behle often reminds us we need to have more than just one tool in our tool box. We don?t want to limit ourselves to becoming another ?Scotch Boutique? from the old SNL skit.
Well I have plenty of tools in my tool box. Sawzalls, snakes and rakes. No problem with tools. Got more than I even know how to use. It?s all about acquisition, you know. Not so much actually using tools, but haaaaving tools. (insert Tim the tool man ooh, ooh, ooh here)
Leftover supplies, that?s my real problem. My garage is filling up with half sheets of perfectly good drywall, old bathroom fans that still go round and round (but not as quietly as they used to) and a really impressive stack of 2X whatever lumber. I?ve offered to share with my neighbor so I can save more stuff. He?d rather keep his car inside. Not very smart. Everyone knows a car can survive getting rained on, but not bags of cellulose insulation!
Then the stack of buckets. Looking more and more like the tower of Babel. Buckets? Yeah, you know the kind. The ubiquitous 5 gallon pails that paint, drywall mud, driveway sealer and pastry filling (?) (I like pastries) comes in.
I?ve used them to haul sand & gravel when my wheelbarrow has a flat tire. Haul water to a site where the liquid is shut off due to remodel. Brined the Thanksgiving turkey (in a food grade plastic bag). Put the day?s ice fish catch in it. Flipped one over and sat on the other end waiting for the catch. Cut off the bottoms and used them for concrete forms. But it?s hard to use them again for hauling sand and gravel after that. I?m not that fast.
Even the old tried and true roadside sale had mixed results. Figured what the hey, if Home Dept can sell orange ?Homer Buckets? for $5 each, I can undercut them at half-price and still make a killing. So they aren?t orange. So what. Depending on the paint color you get a nice variety. So we set up shop in a nice convenient area by the ?Depot. I think they call it an ?out-lot.? But without the steak joint out back.
Anyway I needed advertising so I set up my bandit signs I wasn?t using to buy houses with. Except I turned the ?we buy houses? part inward, and wrote ?Bucket Boutique? on the blank side. What a great use for bandit signs!
So the first guy drives up and gets out. Kinda looks like Cheech. Or was it Chong? Ah, whatever. So he wants to swap some ?produce? for my buckets. He said he needed buckets to pot his plants in his basement greenhouse. Or was it FOR pot plants? Ah, whatever. Don?t think he really knew what he was doing. Everyone knows the south side of your house beats a basement as a sunroom. Besides the market for buckets is better than the oregano market. I say no way Jose?.
So the next customer is a police officer. He was big. I size him up for an ice fisherman for sure. So he writes me a ticket for not having a ?street trades permit? I say hey, I?m not that kind of person, I keep my perversions to myself! Well, a $87.00 ticket really cuts into my stack. I ask him if he wants it in buckets, so I don?t have to cart as many away. He says no. I think he just wants to elbow into my business. Bet the ?Depot put him up to it.
Hmmm. Didn?t Kiyosaki rhetorically ask ?are you building a pipeline or just carrying buckets around?? Everyone tells me I need to write more checks and forget about personally getting involved in the fix-up. I will. I promise. As soon as I can get rid of these buckets! Wanna buy a bucket? What is YOUR favorite use for 5 gallon buckets anyway? How can you help me get rid of these things?
:o)