It was a beautiful day today in Negril; clear and sunny, warm with a fresh breeze. A perfect weather day.
I went to Samuel’s Hardware store to get a piece of rope. I want to hang a chair from the almond tree out front, like at Sun Beach, but a hammock chair. Although I’ve walked by the hardware on numerous occasions, I’d never been in the store before. So, upon walking through the door I was a little surprised when I saw that the customer accessible portion of the store consisted of a narrow section bordered by a long counter that spanned across the very front of the building. Several customers stood around in front of the counter, waiting to be served by the gaggle of people working behind it. Behind them were long aisles of storage shelves that disappeared way into the back of the building. Obviously, all the merchandise was behind the counter, no browsing. This was not Home Depot.
I walked up to the counter and got the attention of the lady who was taking orders. “Do you have rope?” I asked. She half-turned to a young guy who was standing nearby. She said something about a ‘rope board’. The young guy rustled around in a pile of stuff a bit and came up with a piece of board with about a dozen short lengths of varying types and thicknesses of ropes tacked to it.
I pointed to the 5/8 inch polyprop. “How much per foot?” I asked.
“We sell it by the pound,” he replied.
“OK . . . . ah, so how much would about 12 feet of 5/8 inch poly weigh?” I asked.
He consulted a chart. “About a pound,” he replied.
“Then I’d like a pound of 5/8’ths,” I said.
I’ve bought a lot of rope in my day, but always by the foot. It felt odd ordering it by the pound.
So the order lady (who was as friendly as a French waiter) used her machine to print out an order and the young guy dashed off into the bowels of the building to get my rope. I gave $500J to the order lady. She took the money and the order printout and sauntered over to a cash wicket and handed it to the lady inside the wicket. After a minute, yet another lady came back with my change and handed it to me along with my order printout. It had been stamped as paid. After another minute or so, the young guy came to the counter and handed me my rope. I went to give him my order, but he pointed to another guy who was sitting at a small table by the door. I went to the door guy and handed him the order. He looked at it, looked at the rope and scribbled something on the printout and took the top copy. I left the hardware with my rope.
It took five separate people to complete the rope transaction.
I’m just sayin’.
Look at all the different plants growing in this big beautiful cottonwood tree that sits at the intersection of One Love Drive and Hermitage Road.
This is the local bar in Redground that we call 'The Dominoes Bar'.
Where else in the world would you get a view from a booth in a Burger King that is a good as this one?
