March 12, 2019 • 19 mins
Part 1 of our 3 part Minisodes. In part 1 we return with THE MOOSE! Moose is back to talk about life as a pitchman! How he got into it, what made him stay, and what happens when you bring your little boy to work when you're trying to sell some mops at the fair!
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Find Straw Hut Media at https://strawhutmedia.com/ or on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/strawhutmedia/.
Follow Jesse on Instagram,
https://www.instagram.com/stiffed_pod/
And Twitter!
https://twitter.com/there_pod
Plus, check out the show page!
https://strawhutmedia.com/stiffed/
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Straw Hut Media. Hey folks, I'm Jesse Wood and this
is the podcast Stiff from straw Hut Media. This week
we've decided to switch things up a bit. Rather than
stick to our usual theme based episodes, let's enjoy a
couple of minisodes featuring some quite unique stories. A real
(00:23):
amis Boush of service stores. If you will, a MEAs bousch.
What is that you ask? It's It's French for a
fancy bite sized appetizer. This minisode we are rejoined by
the one and only Moose. Get ready to walk a
mile in the shoes of real life pitch man. Everything
from slinging mops with your son, DIY curtains and of
(00:45):
course wacky balls. Strap in because here we go right
after the break well bone appetite man. So you're Tommy.
You spent your former years as salesman, and you've you've
had a story to life.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
I've I think I've sold everything, everything you could possibly sell.
I didn't want to, but I did just where you
ended up, and some of them were great jobs. I
became a pitchman by accident. I was going I was
in LA and I was trying to find a phone
sales job and I was driving it but because my
(01:25):
my sense of direction is so bad.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Is ironic nowadays and smartphones and all the direction.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
And that was in La and I ended up going
to the wrong place and I needed a pitchment and
I went out to coast to Mesa and that's what
I was trying to run, the coast out and coast
to Mesa. Yea, and your old stopping ground, stopping grounds.
And I got this job pitching, and I sold everything
and some of them were great and some of them
weren't great. And one morning you used to have to
(01:55):
get up at four in the morning. And my son,
who was at the time six, is this a nick?
Nick Nico when he calls himself Nico now because he's
an actor. Oh okay, yeah, you know, you gotta change
your name, you know.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
I guess are we going to run out of fake names?
I feel like there's like a shortage.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
Of Nicks, but Nico, and it's kind of sexy. Sounds
like she had have a guitar and started singing.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
Should be playing with Alt underground?
Speaker 2 (02:21):
Yes, I know we should go on the road anyway, Nico,
And I remember I got up early. This was kind
of embarrassing. I got up early and Nick was asleep,
and I drank my cup of coffee and usually I
go to the bathroom. And I went to the bathroom
and there was a quake, a slight one. But for
a brief moment, I thought I was having a heart attack.
(02:44):
It's just I think it's just like the angina. What
is this? But it was smellburn, yeah, you know. And
I was relieved. So the day started off good. I
wasn't dying.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
That's a good way to every morning really, when you
think about it.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
I was selling a new product. I was selling the
the Shammy Mop, the miracle mop. It was Brendon the
sham Wow. Yeah, the sham Wow. They changed their names, okay,
And it was a it's a great mop.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
I like that. They breasted up that one.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
It's one of the few things they still own after
all these years, is the sham Wow. Because it's good
because you can bathe that, you can take it, you
can wash it, put it together. It's very exciting. But
I didn't know that much about it then. And but Nick,
the two men were going to go off and make
money for the women and prode that's right. And I
(03:32):
had a. I had a Toyota tossell Opsie, Daisy, it's
got to be brought the dog and get out of here,
Charlie and the party values sol oh chuckles. Yeah. Anyways,
so well, so we got it. We got in. I
had a Toyota to cell and Nick was still sleeping,
so he's sleeping in the front seat.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
But he was excited.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
And I had a whole I had three boxes of
mops and I had Annolian. It was a whole thing.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
You have this his first time being a salesman, first
time being so interesting because he has a podcast coming
on the network called My First Time with Nick.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
Same shameless, shameless cross promotion. I'm into it.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
He'll probably lie and say say he sold a bunch
of ops. Okay, you know, that's what people do. And
it was in Costa Meson. We were living in Sherman
Oaks and we left at four four thirty and we
got here.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
Can you be more a little more accurate, like four
thirty two?
Speaker 2 (04:32):
I think it was for thirty three, okay, And we
just want to really paid a picture important, you know,
and we drink and then you have to get in line.
Had to wait a half an hour and the big
problem was Nick had to go to the bathroom, you
know what I mean. So we had to get out
of the car. We had to walk all the way
in and he went. It was fine. We came back
and he'll probably deny this, but it happened. It's on
(04:53):
record now, it's on record. Anyway, they let us in.
It was all going great, it was, he was kind
of wonderful. We went inside the commissary, which was the place,
and we had a breakfast sandwich, and he had some
juice and we went to the bathroom again and then oh,
you know when you're drinking, you know, we you know
that's true. And then we found our space. And what
(05:16):
I would do is, I can't remember what they were called,
but get up these metal bars and you make a
tint and then after the tension, oh, the pop ups, yeah,
the pop ups, and then you put down an olium
for this because you had and I had dirt and
I had water, and I had the mops. And what
you do is there was a trick. You spin them
mop and if you do it a certain way, it
(05:37):
picked up the dirt and you dunked it in and
that was the sale pitch. This is my first time
doing it. And Nick was watching and we were waiting,
but it was slow, and Nick was wonderful for about
half an hour, and then he started yelling at the people.
Get over here, don't come back over here, I sable,
don't do this. What's the matter with these people? It's
going they'll come, hey, you, I just want to buy them,
(06:00):
Like Nick, it's okay.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
It's a weird question to yell at somebody in public.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
Don't you want to buy ab up? What a stupid
job this is? Hey? His his attention span, you know,
and I'm thinking next stop that he's go no, no,
we said. He was a little bit like Charlie the Dog,
you know. It was like. And then finally people came
and I would do it and they wouldn't buy. And
it went on and I think I sold one mop
(06:25):
and that was good. And then to start next started
jumping in and he grabbed the mop and started showing
how it was done and if dirt was flying all
over the place, and it was very depressing. And I
was fighting with my son with the mop and the
people were looking at me and I'm going, now, Nick,
let me do this. He was going no, and it's awful.
(06:47):
It's not a good way to sell things when you're
war I'm trying to visualize the I like a passer
by consumer witnessing like you fighting with your son well
you know, and him berating me for not being interested
and said you had noticed that their cheek was twitching.
You know. I was having a light Once you passed
sixty five, you get together with a bunch of old people.
(07:08):
We were having a lunch and with these four filmmaker
friends who went to cal Arts, and the lady kept
offering this one guy coffee and his friend said, no,
he has a bladder problem. And I could see his
cheek twitch, and I went, oh, I bet he really
loved to hear that, you know what I mean. It
was like, so, you know, it's one of those things.
There was that worn with that sort of a twitch.
(07:28):
Oh boy, that's just what I wanted somebody to say,
a pretty girl to be Yeah, no, no, no, Eric
has a bladder problem. No, And I said, oh, yes,
he's a senior. Yes, I'll get him some hair dye
and a girdle. Yeah, very depressing. Anyway, back to the
thing we were fighting with the mop okay and the
water spilled.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
It's it's weird too, because you think, like you having
a kid, displaying like I'm a father providing for a
child up sales. But this is backfiring.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
Anyway, they walked away, okay, And I was cleaning up
the water and the and I said to Nick, I
gave him twenty bucks and told him to go play.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
If you can't solve the problem, throw money at it.
I get you.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
I was actually losing money this day, but I was
with my boy, which is which was quite wonderful. He
went back and bought a bunch of comic books and
and all in all, it was a fun day. I
think I made maybe sixty dollars. It wasn't okay, you're
up forty well one of those gas writing memories. Yeah,
(08:30):
it was. You know, if you pitch the right stuff,
you make a fortune. Yeah, if you like. I once
sold the wacky balls. Now these things would break as
I was selling them, and you would know, you'd know.
It makes me feel uncomfortable hearing the name of the item,
but you would know you were screwed. While you would
(08:50):
Sometimes you get a thing and you and you, hey,
these are wacky balls. Well they're mighty wacky.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
Look at this.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
Look at them they're like little they're like little much
chirrums in there.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
Look at that?
Speaker 2 (08:59):
Isn't that your kids would like to take this? And
then it would break as you were holding it, but
you would twitch your hand like this to make it
seem like we're still working.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
Yeah, you know, like almost a close close up magic.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
Then I'll throw it over the back of your shoulder
and you get another one. I sold one. It was
a horrible there. Anyway, it's funny you tell me that story.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
And actually I don't think your son Nick would deny
it because it is a funny, funny story, and it
reminds me of like I used to just do. I'm
an only child, so to entertain myself is like always
been like the goal. I can't help it. It's just
ingrained me that way. So I used to go to
my mom with a supermarket and as she was, you know,
doing her shopping, I would just go and grab the
(09:43):
most mostly meet most expensive items I could find, and
I sang this made up like Italian song today, let's
up up, and I just keep loading the cart with
the most expensive stuff I could find, and she would
have struggled to put it back. But she would also
struggle because she was like almost doubtable laughing with this
crazy little eight year old kids doing to entertain himself,
(10:05):
and I kept on going with it. You probably got
some good meat too. I think maybe one or two
slipped through the cracks, but yeah, I tried. But these
areally just dumb things that I remember. And the crazy
body momentes is like your family and those of the bus.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
Yeah, you're like you can make people laugh. Yeah, you're
in good ship. Yeah it was, it was. I was
there eight years. The best thing I ever sold was
the Iron, the steam Iron, and it was magic.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
But let me tell let me tell you what right.
Just sent me a YouTube clip that connects to it's
the Wacky Balls promo.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
Oh oh, you're saying the wacky Balls some fond memories
for you, and I was talked into selling those all.
You'll do really well with this, hey, and off you
are at four in the morning with a box of
wacky Balls.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
I really like this Eco family designed, conscious line of toys.
And what I love most of all or that the
colors are not your mainstream traditional games.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
The toy comes with four.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
Balls and a hammer that squeaks, which is really fun
for little ones.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
And the goal is to hammer.
Speaker 3 (11:10):
The ball through the hole and watch it travel down
a mirrored maze and finally end up coming out at
the bottom. Now, if you have little kids that'll probably
use your hands.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
To push down the ball, that might happen. Yeah, that's
a real risk.
Speaker 3 (11:23):
The toy comes apart very easily.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
Yeah, and it breaks easily.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
It comes apart without effort.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
Wacky Ball is made by Doodle Doo Doodle.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
Do you have information about this product?
Speaker 3 (11:34):
Find us at Time to Play mag dot com, your
number one source for all things play.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
And when it breaks and just roll it.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
Yes, I respect you so much for having sold one
of these.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
Yes, I believe that amazed. I remember trying to get
Vince someone to take over, and he got all excited
and after a little while he sat back and was
just real depressed. This was a young actor and he
had dreams, and I remember seeing his face being crushed.
What was happening to his life? He thought he was
going to be like Tom Cruise, and there he was.
He got wacky balls and searing wacky balls. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
Yes, Oh, I had no idea five minutes ago that
was even a thing that existed on earth.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
There were things that you sold that you got excited about.
You'd go there, Oh and it was just terrible.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
It's one of those things like I brought it up
on this before and it's it's kind of a biled
concept too, but like it is always amazing that there's
all these meetings like this has to be vetted by
at least three, four or five people. There's no one
in that meeting that raises their hand. It's like, what
can brown do for you? For ups? Like, no one,
Like it sounds like you're talking about shit. The wacky
(12:43):
balls already the name is disturbing. Oh yeah, and then
you like you pound the ball in the hole and
I'm like, okay, no, no one, no one along the line.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
The problem is if you pound the ball, the pole breaks,
that's the problem. It'll go through the hole, but you'll
never able to use it again unless it's an infant
to get use your hands and they use their hands. Yeah, No,
these things were breaking as we were selling them. They
were breaking, you know, they would break just in the
cardboard box, they would break, you know, And uh oh oh.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
So would you say that, like if there was like
the top five the best items that you sold.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
The one would be walls were the worst. The second
one was the toilet flushers. It was during the drought.
The handles. Yeah, no, no, there wasn't it was. It
was the thing you put it in the toilet. See,
you flush, you don't waste as much water. But what
you don't realize is you flush and then the turd
pops up, so you know, there's you know, you have
to flush again and the turd still pops up because
(13:40):
there's not enough water, you know, and you're trying to
sell this. Oh, you'll save a lot of money on this,
you know.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
You know that brown thing.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
Yeah it's okay, Yeah, it's uh no, there were tons actually,
you know you put them out of your ow. You
know what would happen is you'd realize, oh, no, I'm screwed.
You'd be at this thing because I made money by commission. Yeah,
(14:09):
and if you don't sell you it's terrible. Yeah. There
was a thing that's so like crazy and it was
the stupidest thing in the world. Wait to hear it
was Oh man, okay, this is this, this is the one.
You know, it's amazing and it's amazing people buy this,
you know what I mean. They see it on TV.
(14:30):
Well it's on TV. It must be good. It must
be good. And you know, you say we'll pay the tax.
You have to say we'll pay the tax because you've
said no tax. That's it's against the law. Yeah, we'll
pay the tax. In nineteen ninety five, and what it
was was it was a It was about a yard
of plastic with holes in it, and you would make
it was called create a curtain, and you stuck balances toill.
(14:53):
And I learned how to make rosettes and balances. And
I'd always and I'd always say things like, you know,
this is not this is not for sissy, but this
is something men do. Just the other day, I was
sitting with the guys watching the game, making.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
A rose tobacco and talking about later.
Speaker 2 (15:08):
Yeah, I don would say, you know, when Bonanza was
going on, if they had something like this, if the
cartwrights could have put some you know, some create some
creative curtains up, it would have made the house a
lot warmer. Those boys didn't have a mother, you know
what I mean?
Speaker 1 (15:21):
And h weren't they all like didn't they have three
different mothers that all passed.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
Yes they did. Boy, Ben, I'm telling you he's someone.
Don't marry that man.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
You know, it's it's it's a i've heard of, like
you know, like a black widow. Black widow's Yeah, he's
the black widower.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
There's all. There's a movie in it. There's a movie,
you know, the man who killed women. But the creator
curtain was plastic and it had holes.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
How did you create a curtain with holes?
Speaker 2 (15:49):
You'd get the proper material and you learned to do
rosettes and you do things and you hang it down
and I'd always ain't ended with and if you get
it done, if I was doing, if you get it
done before Halloween, you can go as a balance. And
I put it on my head and they would get
a big laugh. They'd say, you walk in ares a
curtain rod. You know it was. But those things sold,
(16:11):
that's crazy. We didn't make a thousand bucks a night cash.
That's hard to walk Oh no. And this was twenty
five years ago.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
So I mean it's using too. It's you're using your
natural gifts, like your term and your jokes and your personality,
like and it feels kind of rewarding that way too,
to like the ego.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
A little bit, and it was on TV, so people,
we saw this on TV. We don't have to send away.
We don't have to pay any tax on he's going
to pay the tax. Nineteen ninety five, they bought it
like crazy. We made a fortune. It was terrific. But
then when it died, you say, what do we do next?
And then they throw wacky balls at you, you know
what I mean.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
Devastated.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
You think, well, maybe these will work out, and the next.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
Time I having a good day and something goes horribly wrong,
like someone just threw wacky balls at them.
Speaker 2 (16:53):
One week you make a thousand bucks. Another week you
make five, you know, or you lose money because you
bring your son there and you have to give him
need to go away.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
It's uh, it's a rough industry. But hey, you've got
a new industry going on. You got your little YouTube
station going which I find wildly entertaining. You are a
movie buff. Movie buff, I talked to mister Moose. Yes,
I do the most reviews. They're lovely.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
There's some wonderful films this year.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
I just subscribed today and I'm sad that I'm only
the fourth subscriber. This needs to get out into the
universe and need thus more so.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
Laugh, you will cry, you will sing, and you'll want
to watch movies.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
No, I appreciate you sitting down and tell me some
sales stories. It's one business I've not been in the service,
but that's what I like. I want to get the
whole gamut of experience. And I've been enlightened well the
good at and in no way did you just throw
wacky balls at me? So I'm happy about that. And
by the way, wacky bolls. Now, since the holiday season's over,
you can get a read a good deal.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
That's a good prot. You could get them for like
two bucks one ninety nine, you know beautiful. Well, get
them in a set, throw them at the in laws,
whatever you want to do.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
You're welcome.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
Cannot ever thank the moose enough ever, Love you, sir.
Looking forward to seeing you again and riff and real soon.
That about wraps it up for us this week.
Speaker 4 (18:20):
But before we go, do you have any horse stories
from the service industry, Write me at Jesse at stiffpod
dot com or call us and leave a boy smile
at eight three three four one one four SHM So
which of course is short for straw Hut Media. I
have been your host, Jesse Wood, and this has been stiffed,
even though some of us are big softies. Be sure
to follow the show on social media at stiff pod.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
Please listen, rate and review. It really does make a
huge impact. Thanks, see you next week, Bye the bye.
The minisodes continue. We got a little adventure with our
friends Ava and Justin a bit of a Shanghai and
or a walkout. Stay tuned for more
Straw Hut Media. Hey folks, I'm Jesse Wood and this
is the podcast Stiff from straw Hut Media. This week
we've decided to switch things up a bit. Rather than
stick to our usual theme based episodes, let's enjoy a
couple of minisodes featuring some quite unique stories. A real
(00:23):
amis Boush of service stores. If you will, a MEAs bousch.
What is that you ask? It's It's French for a
fancy bite sized appetizer. This minisode we are rejoined by
the one and only Moose. Get ready to walk a
mile in the shoes of real life pitch man. Everything
from slinging mops with your son, DIY curtains and of
(00:45):
course wacky balls. Strap in because here we go right
after the break well bone appetite man. So you're Tommy.
You spent your former years as salesman, and you've you've
had a story to life.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
I've I think I've sold everything, everything you could possibly sell.
I didn't want to, but I did just where you
ended up, and some of them were great jobs. I
became a pitchman by accident. I was going I was
in LA and I was trying to find a phone
sales job and I was driving it but because my
(01:25):
my sense of direction is so bad.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Is ironic nowadays and smartphones and all the direction.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
And that was in La and I ended up going
to the wrong place and I needed a pitchment and
I went out to coast to Mesa and that's what
I was trying to run, the coast out and coast
to Mesa. Yea, and your old stopping ground, stopping grounds.
And I got this job pitching, and I sold everything
and some of them were great and some of them
weren't great. And one morning you used to have to
(01:55):
get up at four in the morning. And my son,
who was at the time six, is this a nick?
Nick Nico when he calls himself Nico now because he's
an actor. Oh okay, yeah, you know, you gotta change
your name, you know.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
I guess are we going to run out of fake names?
I feel like there's like a shortage.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
Of Nicks, but Nico, and it's kind of sexy. Sounds
like she had have a guitar and started singing.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
Should be playing with Alt underground?
Speaker 2 (02:21):
Yes, I know we should go on the road anyway, Nico,
And I remember I got up early. This was kind
of embarrassing. I got up early and Nick was asleep,
and I drank my cup of coffee and usually I
go to the bathroom. And I went to the bathroom
and there was a quake, a slight one. But for
a brief moment, I thought I was having a heart attack.
(02:44):
It's just I think it's just like the angina. What
is this? But it was smellburn, yeah, you know. And
I was relieved. So the day started off good. I
wasn't dying.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
That's a good way to every morning really, when you
think about it.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
I was selling a new product. I was selling the
the Shammy Mop, the miracle mop. It was Brendon the
sham Wow. Yeah, the sham Wow. They changed their names, okay,
And it was a it's a great mop.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
I like that. They breasted up that one.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
It's one of the few things they still own after
all these years, is the sham Wow. Because it's good
because you can bathe that, you can take it, you
can wash it, put it together. It's very exciting. But
I didn't know that much about it then. And but Nick,
the two men were going to go off and make
money for the women and prode that's right. And I
(03:32):
had a. I had a Toyota tossell Opsie, Daisy, it's
got to be brought the dog and get out of here,
Charlie and the party values sol oh chuckles. Yeah. Anyways,
so well, so we got it. We got in. I
had a Toyota to cell and Nick was still sleeping,
so he's sleeping in the front seat.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
But he was excited.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
And I had a whole I had three boxes of
mops and I had Annolian. It was a whole thing.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
You have this his first time being a salesman, first
time being so interesting because he has a podcast coming
on the network called My First Time with Nick.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
Same shameless, shameless cross promotion. I'm into it.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
He'll probably lie and say say he sold a bunch
of ops. Okay, you know, that's what people do. And
it was in Costa Meson. We were living in Sherman
Oaks and we left at four four thirty and we
got here.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
Can you be more a little more accurate, like four
thirty two?
Speaker 2 (04:32):
I think it was for thirty three, okay, And we
just want to really paid a picture important, you know,
and we drink and then you have to get in line.
Had to wait a half an hour and the big
problem was Nick had to go to the bathroom, you
know what I mean. So we had to get out
of the car. We had to walk all the way
in and he went. It was fine. We came back
and he'll probably deny this, but it happened. It's on
(04:53):
record now, it's on record. Anyway, they let us in.
It was all going great, it was, he was kind
of wonderful. We went inside the commissary, which was the place,
and we had a breakfast sandwich, and he had some
juice and we went to the bathroom again and then oh,
you know when you're drinking, you know, we you know
that's true. And then we found our space. And what
(05:16):
I would do is, I can't remember what they were called,
but get up these metal bars and you make a
tint and then after the tension, oh, the pop ups, yeah,
the pop ups, and then you put down an olium
for this because you had and I had dirt and
I had water, and I had the mops. And what
you do is there was a trick. You spin them
mop and if you do it a certain way, it
(05:37):
picked up the dirt and you dunked it in and
that was the sale pitch. This is my first time
doing it. And Nick was watching and we were waiting,
but it was slow, and Nick was wonderful for about
half an hour, and then he started yelling at the people.
Get over here, don't come back over here, I sable,
don't do this. What's the matter with these people? It's
going they'll come, hey, you, I just want to buy them,
(06:00):
Like Nick, it's okay.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
It's a weird question to yell at somebody in public.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
Don't you want to buy ab up? What a stupid
job this is? Hey? His his attention span, you know,
and I'm thinking next stop that he's go no, no,
we said. He was a little bit like Charlie the Dog,
you know. It was like. And then finally people came
and I would do it and they wouldn't buy. And
it went on and I think I sold one mop
(06:25):
and that was good. And then to start next started
jumping in and he grabbed the mop and started showing
how it was done and if dirt was flying all
over the place, and it was very depressing. And I
was fighting with my son with the mop and the
people were looking at me and I'm going, now, Nick,
let me do this. He was going no, and it's awful.
(06:47):
It's not a good way to sell things when you're
war I'm trying to visualize the I like a passer
by consumer witnessing like you fighting with your son well
you know, and him berating me for not being interested
and said you had noticed that their cheek was twitching.
You know. I was having a light Once you passed
sixty five, you get together with a bunch of old people.
(07:08):
We were having a lunch and with these four filmmaker
friends who went to cal Arts, and the lady kept
offering this one guy coffee and his friend said, no,
he has a bladder problem. And I could see his
cheek twitch, and I went, oh, I bet he really
loved to hear that, you know what I mean. It
was like, so, you know, it's one of those things.
There was that worn with that sort of a twitch.
(07:28):
Oh boy, that's just what I wanted somebody to say,
a pretty girl to be Yeah, no, no, no, Eric
has a bladder problem. No, And I said, oh, yes,
he's a senior. Yes, I'll get him some hair dye
and a girdle. Yeah, very depressing. Anyway, back to the
thing we were fighting with the mop okay and the
water spilled.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
It's it's weird too, because you think, like you having
a kid, displaying like I'm a father providing for a
child up sales. But this is backfiring.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
Anyway, they walked away, okay, And I was cleaning up
the water and the and I said to Nick, I
gave him twenty bucks and told him to go play.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
If you can't solve the problem, throw money at it.
I get you.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
I was actually losing money this day, but I was
with my boy, which is which was quite wonderful. He
went back and bought a bunch of comic books and
and all in all, it was a fun day. I
think I made maybe sixty dollars. It wasn't okay, you're
up forty well one of those gas writing memories. Yeah,
(08:30):
it was. You know, if you pitch the right stuff,
you make a fortune. Yeah, if you like. I once
sold the wacky balls. Now these things would break as
I was selling them, and you would know, you'd know.
It makes me feel uncomfortable hearing the name of the item,
but you would know you were screwed. While you would
(08:50):
Sometimes you get a thing and you and you, hey,
these are wacky balls. Well they're mighty wacky.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
Look at this.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
Look at them they're like little they're like little much
chirrums in there.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
Look at that?
Speaker 2 (08:59):
Isn't that your kids would like to take this? And
then it would break as you were holding it, but
you would twitch your hand like this to make it
seem like we're still working.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
Yeah, you know, like almost a close close up magic.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
Then I'll throw it over the back of your shoulder
and you get another one. I sold one. It was
a horrible there. Anyway, it's funny you tell me that story.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
And actually I don't think your son Nick would deny
it because it is a funny, funny story, and it
reminds me of like I used to just do. I'm
an only child, so to entertain myself is like always
been like the goal. I can't help it. It's just
ingrained me that way. So I used to go to
my mom with a supermarket and as she was, you know,
doing her shopping, I would just go and grab the
(09:43):
most mostly meet most expensive items I could find, and
I sang this made up like Italian song today, let's
up up, and I just keep loading the cart with
the most expensive stuff I could find, and she would
have struggled to put it back. But she would also
struggle because she was like almost doubtable laughing with this
crazy little eight year old kids doing to entertain himself,
(10:05):
and I kept on going with it. You probably got
some good meat too. I think maybe one or two
slipped through the cracks, but yeah, I tried. But these
areally just dumb things that I remember. And the crazy
body momentes is like your family and those of the bus.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
Yeah, you're like you can make people laugh. Yeah, you're
in good ship. Yeah it was, it was. I was
there eight years. The best thing I ever sold was
the Iron, the steam Iron, and it was magic.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
But let me tell let me tell you what right.
Just sent me a YouTube clip that connects to it's
the Wacky Balls promo.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
Oh oh, you're saying the wacky Balls some fond memories
for you, and I was talked into selling those all.
You'll do really well with this, hey, and off you
are at four in the morning with a box of
wacky Balls.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
I really like this Eco family designed, conscious line of toys.
And what I love most of all or that the
colors are not your mainstream traditional games.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
The toy comes with four.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
Balls and a hammer that squeaks, which is really fun
for little ones.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
And the goal is to hammer.
Speaker 3 (11:10):
The ball through the hole and watch it travel down
a mirrored maze and finally end up coming out at
the bottom. Now, if you have little kids that'll probably
use your hands.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
To push down the ball, that might happen. Yeah, that's
a real risk.
Speaker 3 (11:23):
The toy comes apart very easily.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
Yeah, and it breaks easily.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
It comes apart without effort.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
Wacky Ball is made by Doodle Doo Doodle.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
Do you have information about this product?
Speaker 3 (11:34):
Find us at Time to Play mag dot com, your
number one source for all things play.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
And when it breaks and just roll it.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
Yes, I respect you so much for having sold one
of these.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
Yes, I believe that amazed. I remember trying to get
Vince someone to take over, and he got all excited
and after a little while he sat back and was
just real depressed. This was a young actor and he
had dreams, and I remember seeing his face being crushed.
What was happening to his life? He thought he was
going to be like Tom Cruise, and there he was.
He got wacky balls and searing wacky balls. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
Yes, Oh, I had no idea five minutes ago that
was even a thing that existed on earth.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
There were things that you sold that you got excited about.
You'd go there, Oh and it was just terrible.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
It's one of those things like I brought it up
on this before and it's it's kind of a biled
concept too, but like it is always amazing that there's
all these meetings like this has to be vetted by
at least three, four or five people. There's no one
in that meeting that raises their hand. It's like, what
can brown do for you? For ups? Like, no one,
Like it sounds like you're talking about shit. The wacky
(12:43):
balls already the name is disturbing. Oh yeah, and then
you like you pound the ball in the hole and
I'm like, okay, no, no one, no one along the line.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
The problem is if you pound the ball, the pole breaks,
that's the problem. It'll go through the hole, but you'll
never able to use it again unless it's an infant
to get use your hands and they use their hands. Yeah, No,
these things were breaking as we were selling them. They
were breaking, you know, they would break just in the
cardboard box, they would break, you know, And uh oh oh.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
So would you say that, like if there was like
the top five the best items that you sold.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
The one would be walls were the worst. The second
one was the toilet flushers. It was during the drought.
The handles. Yeah, no, no, there wasn't it was. It
was the thing you put it in the toilet. See,
you flush, you don't waste as much water. But what
you don't realize is you flush and then the turd
pops up, so you know, there's you know, you have
to flush again and the turd still pops up because
(13:40):
there's not enough water, you know, and you're trying to
sell this. Oh, you'll save a lot of money on this,
you know.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
You know that brown thing.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
Yeah it's okay, Yeah, it's uh no, there were tons actually,
you know you put them out of your ow. You
know what would happen is you'd realize, oh, no, I'm screwed.
You'd be at this thing because I made money by commission. Yeah,
(14:09):
and if you don't sell you it's terrible. Yeah. There
was a thing that's so like crazy and it was
the stupidest thing in the world. Wait to hear it
was Oh man, okay, this is this, this is the one.
You know, it's amazing and it's amazing people buy this,
you know what I mean. They see it on TV.
(14:30):
Well it's on TV. It must be good. It must
be good. And you know, you say we'll pay the tax.
You have to say we'll pay the tax because you've
said no tax. That's it's against the law. Yeah, we'll
pay the tax. In nineteen ninety five, and what it
was was it was a It was about a yard
of plastic with holes in it, and you would make
it was called create a curtain, and you stuck balances toill.
(14:53):
And I learned how to make rosettes and balances. And
I'd always and I'd always say things like, you know,
this is not this is not for sissy, but this
is something men do. Just the other day, I was
sitting with the guys watching the game, making.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
A rose tobacco and talking about later.
Speaker 2 (15:08):
Yeah, I don would say, you know, when Bonanza was
going on, if they had something like this, if the
cartwrights could have put some you know, some create some
creative curtains up, it would have made the house a
lot warmer. Those boys didn't have a mother, you know
what I mean?
Speaker 1 (15:21):
And h weren't they all like didn't they have three
different mothers that all passed.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
Yes they did. Boy, Ben, I'm telling you he's someone.
Don't marry that man.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
You know, it's it's it's a i've heard of, like
you know, like a black widow. Black widow's Yeah, he's
the black widower.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
There's all. There's a movie in it. There's a movie,
you know, the man who killed women. But the creator
curtain was plastic and it had holes.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
How did you create a curtain with holes?
Speaker 2 (15:49):
You'd get the proper material and you learned to do
rosettes and you do things and you hang it down
and I'd always ain't ended with and if you get
it done, if I was doing, if you get it
done before Halloween, you can go as a balance. And
I put it on my head and they would get
a big laugh. They'd say, you walk in ares a
curtain rod. You know it was. But those things sold,
(16:11):
that's crazy. We didn't make a thousand bucks a night cash.
That's hard to walk Oh no. And this was twenty
five years ago.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
So I mean it's using too. It's you're using your
natural gifts, like your term and your jokes and your personality,
like and it feels kind of rewarding that way too,
to like the ego.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
A little bit, and it was on TV, so people,
we saw this on TV. We don't have to send away.
We don't have to pay any tax on he's going
to pay the tax. Nineteen ninety five, they bought it
like crazy. We made a fortune. It was terrific. But
then when it died, you say, what do we do next?
And then they throw wacky balls at you, you know
what I mean.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
Devastated.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
You think, well, maybe these will work out, and the next.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
Time I having a good day and something goes horribly wrong,
like someone just threw wacky balls at them.
Speaker 2 (16:53):
One week you make a thousand bucks. Another week you
make five, you know, or you lose money because you
bring your son there and you have to give him
need to go away.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
It's uh, it's a rough industry. But hey, you've got
a new industry going on. You got your little YouTube
station going which I find wildly entertaining. You are a
movie buff. Movie buff, I talked to mister Moose. Yes,
I do the most reviews. They're lovely.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
There's some wonderful films this year.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
I just subscribed today and I'm sad that I'm only
the fourth subscriber. This needs to get out into the
universe and need thus more so.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
Laugh, you will cry, you will sing, and you'll want
to watch movies.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
No, I appreciate you sitting down and tell me some
sales stories. It's one business I've not been in the service,
but that's what I like. I want to get the
whole gamut of experience. And I've been enlightened well the
good at and in no way did you just throw
wacky balls at me? So I'm happy about that. And
by the way, wacky bolls. Now, since the holiday season's over,
you can get a read a good deal.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
That's a good prot. You could get them for like
two bucks one ninety nine, you know beautiful. Well, get
them in a set, throw them at the in laws,
whatever you want to do.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
You're welcome.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
Cannot ever thank the moose enough ever, Love you, sir.
Looking forward to seeing you again and riff and real soon.
That about wraps it up for us this week.
Speaker 4 (18:20):
But before we go, do you have any horse stories
from the service industry, Write me at Jesse at stiffpod
dot com or call us and leave a boy smile
at eight three three four one one four SHM So
which of course is short for straw Hut Media. I
have been your host, Jesse Wood, and this has been stiffed,
even though some of us are big softies. Be sure
to follow the show on social media at stiff pod.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
Please listen, rate and review. It really does make a
huge impact. Thanks, see you next week, Bye the bye.
The minisodes continue. We got a little adventure with our
friends Ava and Justin a bit of a Shanghai and
or a walkout. Stay tuned for more
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