In the middle of a recent rain storm, a salesman appeared in the doorway of the garden center where I work. My coworker, John McCracken, a mountain of a man with a handlebar mustache, politely held the door open so that the man could get out of the rain.

 “Where is the owner? I have an appointment to meet with him,” the salesman said straight away. The man was fidgety and prowled back and forth in the store. He had a blue tooth phone device in his ear. 

“He’s in a meeting,” McCracken said. “He’ll be back in ten minutes.”

“What? We had a meeting scheduled,” the salesman said agitated. 

“He has lots of meetings.  I’m sorry,” McCracken offered. “He’s running late.”

“I want to put his business on the cover of the phone book,” the man said. “How’s that sound? Huh?” The man brushed rain off his shoulders and then slicked back his hair. 

“Like I said, you’ll need to speak with the owner,” McCracken repeated.

 “What?” The man snapped. “You don’t want to be on the cover of the phonebook? I can’t believe it,” the man said shaking his head. He paced back and forth in front of McCracken. “Who are you? What do you even do here?”

“Excuse me?” McCracken asked.

“What do you even do?” the man asked snidely, as he looked McCracken up and down. His condescending attitude hung in the air around McCracken like a noose. McCracken had just spent his entire morning building a stone patio. He labored long and hard, lifting, setting, and hauling massive stone blocks. Half way through the job, the rain got too hard and he came back to the garden center for a break. His work pants were caked with dirt and his hands were covered with grit. 

Without even waiting for a reply, the salesman stormed out of the building. The greeter bells on the back of the door clanged violently in his wake.

McCracken turned towards me and said, “Who uses phonebooks anyway? Hey, guy, there’s this new thing called the ‘Internet’ that you should check out.” We had a good solid laugh.

A few hours later, the garden center received a phone call from a person at a popular Twin Cities realtor. firm. The customer was the polar opposite of the salesman. He was cheery and polite and not a douche.

“I need a favor,” cheery guy asked. “My dad is real sick and we are trying to sell his house. I wanted to buy some mulch to spruce up the outside of his house so that it’d look nicer.”

“Ok,” the cashier said.

“I want to have some mulch delivered today. Say like 25 bags. Can you do that for me?”

“No problem.”

“Great. Thanks so much for helping me with this.”

“Sure.”

“I have to do it on my lunch break. But my dad gave me cash to pay for it. You know how parents can get?”

“Totally.”

“He really wanted to pay for it. Can I just give the cash to the delivery guy?”

“Sure.”

The cashier took cheery guy’s info: name, address, phone number, and mulch order. The delivery sheet got passed to me, McCracken, and my coworker J.R. It was still pouring rain, but we still had to go outside and load up 25 bags of mulch. The bags were soaking wet and weighed about 35 pounds each. It was like moving dead bodies. Since we were working men, though, we work regardless of the weather. Over the last couple of years, the three of us as a work crew have developed a foxhole mentality. Things can get awful, but we are in this together. We trudged the bags to the truck, hoisted them up with all of our might, and got coated in grime and mulch juice. J.R. took the delivery out solo because McCracken and I had to stay back at the garden center to hold down the fort.

Even though the delivery was just a few blocks away, J.R. couldn’t find the address that was written on the delivery sheet. He called the phone number that Cheery Guy gave on the delivery sheet.

“Hi, this is J.R. And I have a delivery of mulch for you,” J.R. said. “I’m having a little problem finding the house.”

“That’s because it’s not there,” the man said.

“Excuse me,” J.R. said.

“It’s not there asshole. How’s it feel? Huh?” The man said.

“Excuse me? Um, I have your mulch. Where should I go?” J.R. asked a second time.

“The house ain’t there. How’s it feel to be stood up? Huh? How’s that feel? Good? That feel good?” 

J.R. paused for a moment. He had no idea what was going on. “So…you don’t want the mulch?”

“Tell your boss how it feels to be stood up,” the man barked. Click. 

J.R. returned to the garden center with the 25 bags of mulch. 

“We just got Punk’d,” J.R. said.

Apparently, the salesman from the morning was so pissed about being stood up by our boss that he called in a fake delivery. Not only that, he used an accomplice to orchestrate the whole thing, a person working at a popular realtor firm. A few minutes after J.R. got back, the three of us found ourselves begrudgingly unloading the 25 bags of mulch. In the rain.

So, know this Mr. Salesman: The working men are pissed. You shit on three hard working men just to get your rocks off. As laborers, we may not have a lot. But we have our dignity.   Consider this a warning. We know what you look like. If any one of us sees you, our vengeance will be biblical.

I’m kidding, of course. Kind of.