One Man’s Junk
Published by Damon Ortt at Smashwords
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Also by Damon Ortt
Nothing yet. But he’s just getting warmed up.
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One Man’s Junk. Copyright 2011 by Damon Ortt. This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
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Chapter In The Beginning
Several years ago I was something of an aspiring entrepreneur. My friend, Emil, and I were teeming with ideas about how to make some cash. Of all the schemes we came up with, trash was, without doubt, the best in terms of actually making any profit … with the exception of loan sharking, but that’s a different story.
Trash was good to us. We had three different methods of making money off of it, and two of them produced. The first business (I use the term lightly) was a junk removal business, similar to the now popular 1-800- GOT JUNK. The idea is that people have tons of junk in their houses, and we provided a service that would come and take away anything and everything that they wanted to get rid of.
We began our business by planning out everything we would do in order to make a profit, which amounted to having a banner made, and of course “put an ad in the paper,” which was my answer to everything. So, with the business plan completed, we went into business the very next day.
With the sun beating down on our baseball hats, we stood at the busiest intersection in town, each holding one end of our new, eight foot long yellow banner, which, prominently displayed in blue letters:
GOT JUNK? YOU CALL, WE HAUL (telephone number)
The plan was foolproof. All we had to do was stand at busy intersections, hold our banner, and wave at people. We were so sure about our idea that we had, for the additional price of $9.98 per month, call waiting, so that we wouldn’t miss a single customer. Our calls were forwarded to my cell phone so that we would still receive calls while we were out of the “office.” (a corner of my desk at home where there was a telephone, one receipt for a banner, and one receipt for a newspaper ad) The first contact that we had with anyone was a mall security guard kicking us off the property. Undiscouraged, we went to the opposite side of the intersection, stood in the tall weeds and resumed waving at cars as they sped by and honked at each other.
One of the problems that we had was boredom and inattention to the condition of the banner. We realized that we had to be vigilant at keeping it taught because, while caught up in the excitement of waving at cars with people in them who did not wave back, the banner would sag in the middle, and no one would have been able to read what it said.
With our Caucasian skin turning red from the sun, our lungs turning black from car exhaust, and our stomachs growling from no money for food, our attitudes changed from hopeful and expectant to ornery and impatient. Instead of talking about how we would spend our untold millions of dollars and how nice it was going to be to have a private jet, our dialogue went in a different direction.