Specialization

In the heyday of “Saturday Night Live,” they spoofed the emerging mall specialty stores. Dan Aykroyd managed one that sold Scotch Tape and nothing but. In the last couple weeks, I’ve come across real life examples that rival that.

This past weekend, I attended a dinner party. The hostess isn’t known for her culinary interests, so I assumed it would be catered. I was right.

I arrived and found the caterer’s van in the driveway. And the caterer. He was employing a gas-fired wok to make paella. I chatted with him a bit and he asked if I would take his card for future reference. I agreed and he gave it to me. He’s the Paella Chef.

“That’s all you do is paella?”

“I am the Paella Chef.”

“So, this is a hobby or what?”

“No, this is my job.” You can make a living catering nothing but paella. Who knew? As I approach retirement (again), I wonder if I could do something like that. Might not be as much demand for the Grilled Cheese Chef.

A couple weeks prior, the post of my mailbox finally rotted through. I’m not the original owner of the house, but I’d guess it was there from the beginning. I had never given it any thought until it was time to replace it.

Where I grew up, we didn’t have mailboxes. You had a slot in your front door. After college, I had an apartment with the community lock boxes in the foyer. Later, my houses had boxes mounted next to the front door. This was my first streetside apparatus.

I had noticed sprinklings of new identical plastic mailboxes popping up in the neighborhood. Maybe someone had been going door-to-door selling them. I’m never home and would’ve missed that.

But, how difficult or expensive could it be? It’s an aluminum can on a stick? Yes, I am a city boy.

I do a web search and am mildly surprised by the cost. There just isn’t that much to these things and they’re hardly unique in attributes, unless you’re trying to pose as the Hearst Castle. They’re a commodity and should be dirt cheap.

Then, I investigate installation. Apparently, I’d have to buy or rent a post hole digger and then gnaw away at the impacted clay that is my front yard. There is no single definitive way to then prep the hole. Some swear by drainage gravel while others eschew it. There’s a camp for those who advocate concrete filler and another for those who warn against it. The heck with it. I have better things to do with my life and there seem to be people who do this kind of thing.

Back to the web search. I find three sources that look promising. The last one has no website that I can find, so I phone. It’s called “Mailbox Installers” or something like that.

A gravelly voice answers, “Yeah?” like I’m imposing.

From the scant information on line, I don’t know if they do this type, the multiple wall units or what. “Do you sell and install the residential curbside mailboxes?”

“That’s what the name says.” This was punctuated with a hacking cough.

“Do you have a website where I can look at your boxes?”

“No, I don’t have any damned website. You can’t see quality on a website. You wanna see them, you come in. I’m open till two on weekdays.” I heard him mumble something that was indistinguishable except for “jerk.”
There was clearly only one course of action. I went to see him.

It was one large, dark room, bristling with a dense mailbox forest. They were stuffed into barrels, pails, boxes and about anything else that could support them at all angles of lean. To one side was a raised platform, dominated by an old desk and a corpulent senior citizen. He was framed by high piles of paper, yellowed and curled at the edges with age. Precariously perched on one was a plastic clock radio, circa 1960s. A coat hanger was being used to amplify reception.

“I’m here about a mailbox.”

“I assumed that, what with what the sign outside says and all.” Yep, this was the guy.

“I don’t want anything fancy.”

“I’ll show you our most popular model.”

With great effort, he stood up and waddled and wheezed down a narrow aisle through the clutter. They all looked alike to me but he stopped abruptly and leaned on one. “This here is stainless steel with a powder coating.” He quoted the price, which was more than I would’ve thought.

“What else do you have?” There were only about 300 others on display. “I was looking for something a little less expensive.

“You don’t want any of that shit and I won’t sell it to you.” Easy to see why this was the most popular model.

Given no alternatives, I agreed to the deal. We trundled back to the desk and wrote up the order on an old multipart form.

Before I could stop myself, I heard me asking, “This is all you do, sell mailboxes?”

Silently, I replied along with him, “That’s what the sign outside says, doesn’t it?”