A Salesman Who Could Not Sell

After his divorce from his mail order bride Uncle Eli took a job as a salesman for a meat packing plant in Beaver Gorge. He was ill-qualified for this position. He was never prepared for the day, his wardrobe was about twenty years behind the times, and most importantly he couldn't sell water to a thirsty rich man in the desert. But he did all right for a while mainly because the last salesman, recently retired, had done a such good job with the accounts, all they needed was careful, tactful maintenance. Unfortunately, Uncle Eli wanted more. He observed that Slick Willingham, the guy who took Eli with him on his route to show him the ropes, had great success in increasing his sales and was always top salesman. Slick was a backslapping, joke telling, good old boy. His demeanor was such that he could insult a man and have that guy laughing and willing to buy whatever Slick was selling. Eli had no such demeanor. If he had left well enough alone he would have had no problems, but after a month or so of steady sales Eli adopted Slick's approach. The calls came rushing into the plant. Customers were threatening to move to a competitor. Ethyl Borquester was secretary to the owner and took the angry calls. She was a rescuer by nature and had her eye set on Eli as one who definitely needed rescuing. Tomorrow I'll tell you how Ethyl took over and saved Uncle Eli.

Tales of Harper, short stories and poems about the fictional town of Harper, Mississippi is available on Amazon Kindle