MAJOR BLAIR

Two of my brothers and I were in the watch-selling business some years ago. I had been to a yard sale and a guy offered to sell 100 watches for $5.00 each; I told my brothers about it and we bought 100 watches and each one of us took 33 watches to sell with one left over which I wore as a demo; the man from whom we bought the watches had been selling them for $10.00 each and he suggested we do the same. As I was in management, I could not sell my share at work, but I was able to sell them to friends; however, I thought doubling the price was unfair, so I sold mine for $7.00 each. My brother Neil took his share to work where he promptly sold his for $20.00 each. Norman took his share to work and as he was unable to leave his work area to "hawk" the merchandise, he had a buddy sell his share and gave him $1.00 commission on each watch he sold. At Norman's work, there was a guy named Major Blair [his actual name; he wasn't an officer in the service; he was just a guy from the South whose parents had inflicted him with that name!] and when he asked the price of the watches, Norman's buddy told him that the price was "$10.00 each or 2 for $25.00". Amazingly, Major Blair bought two watches at that price. Several days later he came to Norman and asked if he still had some of those watches and he bought two more at 2 for $25.00! [Did I fail to mention that Major Blair was gullible and "not the sharpest knife in the drawer"?]

We were greedy and we kept buying and selling watches for some time until someone mentioned to Neil that he had seen someone else selling the watches for $10.00 each, to which Neil replied, "I don't have $10.00 watches!" Our market soon "dried up" and we ended up with a bunch of unsold watches. Ironically, I ended up selling the remainder of mine at a yard sale for $5.00 each!

When I had the article "Sometimes You Just Can't Help People" on the blog, Norman reminded me of that "Major Blair" story to which I replied that every story similar to this will be honored by naming them "Major Blair Stories".

I was at Walmart and I usually buy the "economy refill size" of Spray 'n Wash. I noticed that the economy size was 60 ounces for $4.99 and the 32-ounce was $1.97 each. Always helpful, I mentioned to a woman beside me, "Isn't this something? 60 ounces for $4.99 and the regular size is $1.97." She replied, "I always buy the economy size." MAJOR BLAIR!