the Scuffy - 23. Chapter 23

On Wednesday, we stopped at the sport shop. I wanted to get Peter a safer shoe as I didn’t want him to fall overboard. “Jim, I need a safer shoe, my seven year old son has the deck shoes but I’m still concerned about him walking around, what do you have?”

“You should try these.They are designed for deep sea fishing like they do off of the coast of Canada.”

“Do you have his size?”

“Yes, I think I do. I just sold a pair last week to a guy who has a boat at the marina south of town. Here I think you’ll like these?

“If they work I might get a pair for my whole crew.”

“How big is your crew? I thought fishing boats had a crew of two or three with the captain.”

Looking at Glen, “We have a crew of six plus the captain. Most of the crew are teenagers. They do a great job and it’s fun to see them learn.”

“Kev, look at this.” Glen held up a T-shirt with a picture of a boat on them.

“Jim, do you buy those like that or do you print them here?”

“We buy the shirts with the picture and then we personalize them with any name the customer wants.”

I looked at Glen, he smiled and nodded his head. “If I gave you an order how soon could you have it done?”

“I’ll put Junior on it and he should have to done in a couple of days. Are you thinking individual names or one name, like the name of the boat?”

“I think we’ll want the name of the boat but in different sizes. Glen, tell Jim the sizes and we’ll need at least three in each size.”

“Jim, I’ll call you after I drop off Stella’s fish.”

“Is that the fish she sells?”

“I’m not a hundred percent sure, I just know we give her about six fish every week. Take a look maybe that will answer your question.”

“Yea, that looks like it. If you drop off a few here, I might have something for you.”

“Okay, it’s a deal but you’ll have to wait till Monday.”

Jim brings what looks like a large ice chest from the back of the store. “That’s a large ice chest.”

“It’s more,” opening the chest.

“It’s not very deep. I think my ice chests have an extra four to five inches in depth.”

“That’s because it isn't a normal ice chest. Look here, in there is an internal cooling device that operates off propane. This unit will keep the temperature at thirty-eight degrees.”

“In that case then there has to be an external source of energy.”

“There is, either AC or DC. Putting the switch in this position for DC and in the other position for AC. This glass tube measures the level of propane. You fill it here just like your barbecue grill.”

“This must cost a fortune.”

“Well, I have a deal for you. These won’t fit in your car’s trunk so you’ll need a truck. If you buy a truck from George, I’ll sell you two of these units at cost. I need someone to use them for advertisement purposes.”

“So I buy a truck from George, you’ll equip the truck with two of these units and you can use us for advertisement?”

“That’s it” I looked at Glen, he smiled and nodded yes, “Okay Jim it’s a deal.”

Jim went and phoned George, “George has a red and a black truck that could be here this week.”

“Glen, what color would you like?”

“Black”

“Okay Jim you have a deal. I’ll give you a check tomorrow and my insurance information. Glen, I got to get back to work. Work out with Jim the total cost including the shirts and boots for the kids. I think we should all wear those boots.”

I went back to work and soon was deep in reports. Time seems to fly fast when you are busy and before I knew it, there was Glen sitting in my office. “Is it time already?”

“Yep, it's twenty minutes past six, I have been sitting here for ten minutes.”

“I’m sorry, let me wrap up here and then we can go.”

In the car on the way home, “I want Nicky to get his driving license. I’m going to contact a driving school to give him lessons, that’ll give us a discount on his insurance. If you get a chance, run this by your dad.”

“He isn’t going to have any problems with that. He may have a problem with buying him a car.”

“He can use my car and in fact I may give him my car.”

“Are you trying to spoil him.”

“Yep, just like I spoil his brother. Did you get the bill from Jim?”

“Yes, it’s pretty steep. Since we are in this together, I’ll pay half.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

“Yes, I do. If we’re going to get married then as far as financials go, it's half and half.”

“And in bed?”

“Its twenty-five - seventy-five, my share is the seventy-five percent.”

We were laughing as we pulled into the garage. “Do you smell something?”

“Yes, dinner”

Walking into the kitchen, “Nicky whatever you are cooking smells really good. I kind of like this, Glen do you think we can get him to move in?” We all laughed but I wouldn’t mind Nicky living here.

Nicky had his Thursday party, we had pizza for dinner. Johnny was there so we took the opportunity of taking his measurements. Nicky said later that Johnny was excited about working on the boat. I told Glen I thought he was more excited abut being with the boys.