Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Sometimes life teaches you lessons the hard way. It's not always ideal, it's not always what we want, but let's face the facts, sometimes you've just got to peek under the veneer to see how unfair it all can be.
For a couple years as a wee lad in my pre-Stumblebum days, I took a liking to the Cub Scouts and joined their ranks. My tenure with the Scouts was short lived, as they realized I was a heathen while I was working towards my Webelos (pronounced WE BLOW) and was asked to leave their organization.
But this isn't a story about a poor atheist boy being driven from the mean old Scouts. No, this is the tale of cold, hard reality slapping my face. This is the tale of an innocence lost, stripped away by the machinations of fate. This was one of my first moments of awareness.
At the time, my family lived near the top of a rather large hill. Not just any hill, mind you. This puppy was large enough that I managed to get my Huffy past sixty miles an hour before wiping out and extending the side of my mouth another 2-3 inches.
And we weren't even at the top.
One day the word comes from our den leader that fundraising time is drawing close. Nowadays we think of fundraisers as being cookies, candy bars, something light and airy that everybody can get behind. Not in this case.
We were smack dab in the economic boom of the Reagan years, and you can rest assured that the venerable scouting organization wanted us to suck every last penny out of Joe Sixpack that we possibly could. The method? The Tom Watts quality assortment.
Tom Watts...the name still sends cold shivers of terror down my spine.
This was no minor fundraising event, this was a full fledged money making operation. The Tom Watts assortment was a veritable smorgasbord of useless crap. Oven mitts, spinning tops, toolkits...you name it, it was likely in that cardboard briefcase. The order form alone was four pages of checkboxes and prices. To a kid of nine, this was some crazy complicated stuff. I lugged the thing home, opened it up and began familiarizing myself with it.
The upside to this whole affair was that we would receive a prize at the end of the fundraiser relevant to the money we brought in for the Scouts. I lay awake at night dreaming of the movie accurate Darth Vader suit, or Ferrari, or whatever else the big prize might be. But my dreams were not to last.
My father informed me in no uncertain terms that he was not going to help. No order forms would be taken to his office. No rides would be given. If I wanted the prize, I would have to earn it. In retrospect, this was a great lesson. At the time, though, I stared daggers through him.
Resigned to having to do this all on my own, I spent an entire weekend hauling this forty pound monstrosity around, feebly attempting to put on my salesman hat as I espoused the greatness of some worthless crap that I had no belief in.
Mind you, this was summer time in Alabama. It was scorchingly hot, the damn suitcase would NEVER close right after you opened it for the first time, and did I mention it weighed nearly as much as I did? This abomination was so unwieldly that I ended up using a dolly to cart it around our hill.
Up and down the roads I weaved, facing constant disappointment when I realized just how many other Scouts there were. Everybody was already buying from a friend's kid or a cousin or something else. Nobody wanted my low quality goods at high, high prices.
All said and done I managed about $200 in sales from my efforts. My Herculean efforts. I staggered back home each night after whoring myself to the neighborhood, appeased only by my dreams of grandeur.
The big day finally arrived and we sat in eager anticipation as our troop leader called us up to award us our prizes.
I won a magnifying glass.
Not a big Sherlock Holmes looking thing, but a pathetically tiny little plastic beast in a faux leather pouch. Even as a nine year old I recognized it as cheap crap. All that hard work and I was rewarded with a token prize. It was "Everybody gets a trophy day" at the Scouts that night.
The kid who won the big prize? Yeah, he was from my neighborhood. He sold more than $1,000 worth of Tom Watts wares. And how did he accomplish this grand feat? Easy.
His mom took the order form to her work and his dad took the order form to his work.
That kid didn't do one single thing. I busted ass and worked my fingers to the bone and I got a pat on the head. The winner didn't do a damn thing and reaped the reward.
To this day I have never once purchased an item from a fundraiser sheet that's ended up at my workplace. I have a hard, fast rule. Hand me the form yourself and convince me to buy it or no sale.
Thanks, Tom Watts.
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6 comments:
Ha, ha! That's funny! I had forgotten all about that. I thought they had some pretty cool stuff, though. Then again, I didn't have to lug it up and down a MOUNTAIN! You forgot to mention that it was a MOUNTAIN, not a hill! You finally answered my private question as to why I never buy from office fund raisers, though. I figured it was because I was a Scrooge who hated kids (and expensive yet cheap crap), but no. It's because I was forced to sell oranges, candy, magazine subscriptions, Christmas crap, cookbooks, and other overpriced useless junk door to door for YEARS. I never once got a ride or office help. But you were lucky. I never got so much as a cheap plastic magnifying glass. I guess they didn't BLOW after all.
I was actually trying to find topographical data on the town yesterday so that I could emphasize its height, but I couldn't quite find what I was looking for.
I never thought a whole lot of it until recently, when one of my coworker's kids brought in an order form for cookies. She handed me the form and I ordered two boxes.
Then it occurred to me, I have never once ordered anything from one of these fundraisers. I guess it's because the kids never made the effort.
I was pissed as a kid that we were forced to handle things that way, but ultimately I think it was a good lesson. At least with Tom Watts, I EARNED every single sale. It was never just handed to me.
Still, it sucked at the time. :P
How I remember the Tom Wats kit..
It was my first lesson on how to be used as a Chump. Door to door, at age 11, facing the harsh realities of high pressure salesmanship. Me, my Cub Scout uniform, and a giant cardboard box filled with the most worthless crap known to man. One full week of lugging around that cardboard coffin of crapola. One week of asking myself " Who the F--K is Tom Wats, one week of busting my Boy Scout Butt showing worthless wares around the neighborhood hoping someone will take pitty on my sorry ass and buy something. Now as bad as this was, two weeks later you had to go back out and deliver this junk to the fools sorry enough to buy it in the first place. For the life of me, I can't remember a damn thing that was in that kit. I do remember that crappy screwdriver kit, 8 or 10 worthless screwdrivers in a white translucent plastic box. I used them on my bicycle, and of course they immediately broke. As for my fabulous glittering prize. ... I have no idea what the hell it was, I'm probably better off. I do remember that magnifying glass, it was a cheap piece of plastic about the size of a half dollar and it folded up into its own simulated leather pouch.
Hard to believe that Tom Wats is still in business today.
REALLY, THANKS TOM WATS
How can I get tom wat kits to day
Wanting a kit please
Ask and ye shall receive...
https://tomwat.com/
https://www.facebook.com/TomWatFundraising/
Have fun.
E
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