A long time ago, back when farmers plowed fields with dinosaurs, and spare parts were chiseled from rock, I worked at a tractor dealership.
There were only two women in the shop, the secretary and me. What can you say about working with a bunch of guys who have oil stains on their elbows and grease under their fingernails? It was like having 12 brothers.
That time has given me some great stories to tell. So no regrets. The secretary, on the other hand, might have a few.
The secretary was deathly afraid of mice. We’re talking leap-over-chairs-on-your-way-to-the-parking-lot kind of fear. This was not a good thing to reveal to our crew.
One of the guys came back from vacation one year with a foam rubber animal attached to a thin wire. You could wiggle the wire and make the fake animal squirm along on the floor.
Our secretary almost moved her desk to the front sidewalk that day.
I wasn’t overly fond of mice myself but wasn’t going to admit. I had grown up with brothers, so I knew that you never admit weakness. Bluffing is better.
But the tractor crew still tested me. I was in charge of checking in shipments – large and small – at our business and so one day found a small plastic bag on my desk. This wasn’t unusual, and I flipped the bag to check the shipping tag.
A dead mouse was stapled inside the bag.
I dropped the gift and looked up to see our service manager and parts manager peering around the corner, eyes big like a toddler hoping for a cookie.
The service manager threw his hands in the air. “It wasn’t my idea!”
And the parts manager put his hands up, too. “I didn’t put that bag on your desk.”
Because I had learned how to ignore my brothers, I ignored these guys, too. It’s a good strategy if you can grit your teeth for a little while.
It worked. No more dead mouse came to my desk.
But one day the secretary came back from lunch to find a brown paper bag on her desk. It was stapled shut and shuddering with mystery.
The secretary ran screaming to the break room, positive that the guys had placed a live mouse on her desk. She refused to return to her office, and the boss came wandering out to see what the commotion was about.
He really needed the secretary to get back to her phone-answering and bookkeeping. So he went in search of the service manager.
Under instructions to “take care of that,” the service manager brought the lunch bag outside. Way too many curious eyes followed him. We all watched as he sliced the top off the bag and dumped out a frog.
So the secretary got a freshly-scrubbed and sanitized desk, courtesy of the service and parts managers.
And every time they thought about another mice trick, they just sat down until that thought passed.
You gotta be tough with brothers around.
