Born to Complain

     Chuck Adams was born and raised in Jacksonville, Florida... a city boy.  As a child he attended Catholic schools, fully intending to become a priest.  After enrolling at Notre Dame University, however, he discovered girls and changed his mind about the priesthood.  In retrospect, this change of heart was probably a fortuitous circumstance for all concerned.  Chuck and the priesthood would not have good for each other... nor to each other.  He would quickly have been assigned to the Australian Outback, defrocked, or whatever it is they do when they want to mask an unsightly blemish, and rest assured he would not have gone quietly.  As a matter of fact, in a dogfight between Chuck and the institution of Catholicism, my money would have been on Chuck.
     While at Notre Dame, he met and quickly wed Jessica Mabry, a Coal County native who had "gone off to college somewhere in Indiana".  After graduation they moved back to Coal County and Chuck set up a small insurance agency where he has done quite well over the years... financially that is.  In other areas, he has not fared so well.
     Chuck still suffers from culture shock.  He sums it up as only he can.  "Little did I know, when I came to this reject of modern times that a majority of the roads would be unpaved!  That a big time would be driving over to the A&P in Alhurst to count cars!  That a man's worth would be measured by his ability to stab a frog with a pitchfork!  That my social life would center around a popcorn popper and a pitcher of iced tea!" and so on.  It took a while to realize that Chuck had honed to a razor's edge, the fine art of complaining, every sentence punctuated with an exclamation point.  Jessie said he was like that when she met him.  He can't help it.  He was then and is now a chronic and compulsive complainer.
     He hadn't been in the county two weeks when he stopped by my house one evening to rant and rave about his prize-winning cat.  I didn't even know cats could win prizes.  He was upset because it had been bitten in the head by a snake.
     "I've had that cat for ten years!  Longer than I've had my wife!  He couldn't even walk!  His head was the size of a basketball!  He was BACKING across the lawn!  Dragging his head!"
     He got even madder when I suggested his cat must not have won any prizes for brains, if he was messing with a copperhead.  Are you beginning to see what I mean?  His prize-winning cat recovered just fine, but still he complained.  Within six months that cat had gotten in so many fights he'd lost his tail, most of one ear and he walked with a limp.  I mentioned to Chuck that his cat obviously didn't win any prizes for self-defense either, and he threw something at me.  Some prize-winner.  Aristotle Suggins, our resident philosopher, told Chuck that no matter how much cats fight there always seemed to be plenty of kittens.  Chuck still complained.
    

 Communications, A Lost Art

"No one would talk so much if he only knew how often he misunderstands others."
                                                                                            Johann Von Goethe

      With the limited communication skills urged on us by our "Instant Gratification" society, it's no wonder we have wars.  Men have been killed when they totally agreed with their combatant.  They just didn't know they agreed... Confused?  That's what I'm talking about.
      Try this.  Ask two people to describe "a house".  Two distinctly different pictures will emerge, even though both are describing the same thing.  One might describe a small white clapboard home and the other a sprawling mansion.  In other words, the mental picture of a house in my mind will certainly be different than the picture in yours... but we don't stop to think about that at the time.  We, more or less, assume that we are talking about the same thing.
      Another example... the word "love".  Most divorces are caused because of a misunderstanding of this simple word.  When a man and a woman get married, they "love" each other.  Problems crop up because each has his/her own definition of the word. His idea of "love" might be coming home from work on Friday night and sending the kids to Grandmaw's for the weekend so he can show her what "love" really means.  Or, "love" might mean his wife has cooked yet another great meal, cleaned the house and is smiling an e-e-evil smile when he walks through the front door.  On the other hand, her idea of "love" might be cooing on the sofa after coming home from a nice restaurant and snuggling with a man who actually smells good... and didn't have bean burritos for lunch.  (Please excuse the overly broad generalizations.  They are merely used as illustration.)  When he comes home stinking like three-day-old, midsummer roadkill, asking her to pull his finger, that doesn't fit her definition.  Likewise, when he comes home to a hand-slapping, frowning, weepy wife who complains that he doesn't understand, that doesn't fit his definition.  The problem isn't that these two people don't love each other, the problem is communications.  They never shared, in the first place, their respective definitions of the word "love".  If they had, they might never have gotten married.
      Let's look at a couple of simpler examples.  If you want a Pepsi, depending on where you are in this vast country, you would ask for a soft drink, a soda, or a pop.  Asking for a "pop" in Georgia, might get you a pop in the eye.  Asking for a soda in Michigan might get you a box of Arm and Hammer.  Here in Coal County, if you're talking "pie", the person you're talking to would ask what kind - blueberry, apple or coconut custard.  In New Jersey, they would ask if you want anchovies on it, because they're talking pizza.
     The king of communication problems lives here in Coal County... John Zirkle.  John is half-man, half-bear and half-pig.  I know that adds up to one and half people, but John weighs over three hundred pounds and that qualifies. As most of you know, I always set up my tape recorder at the hunt club, and over the years I have captured a few of John's communication gaffs.  I present them here in unedited form.
     "Me and Lorene went to her uncle's funeral in Salinas, Kansas.  All the way there we argued about how to pronounce the name.  I said 'Sa-LEEN-as'  and she said, 'Sa-LINE-as'.  So after we got inside the city limits, I pulled into a fast food place for lunch and decided to ask a Kansas native.  When the girl took our order, I asked her to settle an argument for us.  I asked her to pronounce the name of this place real slow so we could both understand it.  She said, 'Burrrrgerrrr Kiiiiiiiiiing.'"
     John and the girl both knew what they were talking about... they just weren't communicating.
     On another occasion:
     "You know Lorene's momma never has liked me. Actually, everybody knows that, don't they?  She thought Lorene could have done better for herself.  And there was this one time when I got my first car... the one I got from John Isola for fifty dolars.  I was proud... and I sure wanted to show Lorene, so I waited until I thought her momma had gone to work and I was taking it around there.  Naturally, this is the one day her momma would be late.  Just as I was coming up on Dead Man's Curve, here she comes out of the curve.  When she sees me, she sticks her head out of the window and yells, 'PIG!'  I yelled back, 'You ain't so cute, your dern self!'  When I looked back at the road there was a five hundred pound hog sitting in the middle of it.  Man, I totaled my car out on that stupid pig."
     John and Lorene's momma both knew what they were talking about... they just weren't communicating.
     On another occasion:
     "The other day, Lorene was talking to Renee Reich, and she told Renee she was tired of living out in the sticks.  She wanted to move closer to town.  Well, I didn't know about that conversation, and when she told me she wanted to move, we was sitting in the living room watching television.   I thought she meant switch chairs.  Here's how that deal went."
     "Johnny, I want to move."
     "So I got up and said, 'Let's do it.'"
     "And she said, 'I don't mean right now, Johnny.  Are you crazy?'"
     "So I just shook my head and sat back down.  Then a couple minutes later she comes with the vacuum cleaner and says, 'Will you move, please?'"
     "This time I said, 'Sure.' and I just sat there."
     "So she glares at me and says, 'I mean right now, Johnny.  Are you crazy?'"
     John and Lorene both knew what they were talking about... they just weren't communicating.
     On the ocassion of his first airplane ride:
     "So I walked up to the ticket lady and said I wanted a round-trip ticket.  Shel, so help me, she asked, 'Where to?' And I told her... 'Right back here.'"
     John and the ticket lady both knew what they were talking about... you know the rest. 

 Aim, Still Regressing

"The Good Lord don't expect perfection, but he would like us to try for it sometimes."
                              Granddaddy James P. Redd

     Lest you worry that Aim Carsten's memory has improved through the years, let me assure you the world's worst memory is still setting records for faulty.  I can usually find humor in these mental lapses, but this time it got personal.  His memory, or rather a lack of same, caused me to incur the undying wrath of Coal County's Mr. Warmth, Chuck Adams.
     Chuck complains in his sleep, and the Good Lord knows I try not to give him anything to fuel the fire.  He finds plenty to fume about with no outside help.  He's blamed me for such sundry things as snakes in the boat, hornets in the truck, a skunk in the tent, tobacco juice on his brand new white Volkswagen, and the Great Flood of '56.  On an occasion several years ago, he even blamed me for a bear being in the woods.  I tried to explain as we ran that bears live in the woods, but when he's in one of his moods, he's not looking for explanations.  That particular day, between wheezes, he mumbled something about my grandfather being captain of the Titanic.  I missed the point because, at the time, I was too scared to think about anything but escape.
     No matter how good or bad a particular outing goes, the ride home sounds something like this: "I should have known better than to go anywhere with you! You're a maniac!  You're trying to get us both killed!  Your momma should have put you up for adoption!"  and so on and so on.
     Still, he keeps going places with me, and we fish and hunt together, but with his incessant complaining, my laziness and Aim's forgetfulness, most of our trips end up like a "Three Stooges" movie.  Our latest jaunt was no exception.  Even Aim refers to it as the "Great Forget".
     A particularly harsh winter had paralyzed Coal County for weeks - wind and weather so fierce that people phoned in death threats to the meteorologist at Alhurst's radio station.  All the more reason that a sunshiney, sixty-degree day in February was more than Chuck, Aim and I could stand.  Enthusiasm soon won out over good sense, and we arranged an overnight camping trip up on Twelve Mile Creek with our grandsons.  Allowing for Aim's memory, Chuck was to bring the food, and I agreed to bring firewood, my tent and Aim's tent.  All Aim had to do was show up?  What could possibly go wrong?
     As luck would have it, Aim had cut a load of firewood that very morning, and it was still loaded in the bed of his pickup truck.  My lower lumbar region was already having a battle with my brain for agreeing to cut the firewood, so when Aim offered his wood for the camping trip, I quickly accepted.  He also said he would run put his tent on the truck "right this very minute".  I spent the rest of the morning taking the top off my Jeep so Little Shelby and I could enjoy the thirty mile trip enveloped in the unexpected warmth of a joyous break in the grip of a miserable winter.
     Chuck and I got to the river before Aim, and a nervous tic developed in the recesses of my brain because of Aim's absence.  Working ever so slowly, we started setting up my tent while our grandsons went down to play on the rocks.  I offered urgent silent prayers for Aim's speedy arrival.  The idea of telling Chuck I entrusted Aim to bring the firewood and the other tent didn't exactly appeal to me.  Finally, he asked.
     Still in the throes of a major screaming and quivering tantrum, Chuck paused when we heard Aim's truck bumping down the ravine.  The sweet music of quartered pine logs bouncing in the metal truck bed was music to my ears, but never satisfied, when Aim pulled into the campsite, Chuck asked about the other tent. Aim slapped himself on the head and shouted, "Omigosh!"
     When Chuck turned to glare at me, Aim made a sweeping u-turn and headed back up the ravine.  Chuck took after him in hot pursuit.  "LEAVE THE FIREWOOD!!!!  LEAVE THE FIREWOOD!!!!"  Evidently, Aim couldn't hear him for the din in the back of his truck.
     By this time the day had dramatically cooled.  Aim had a sixty mile round trip in front of him, and Chuck was on the verge of a vein-popping stroke.  I volunteered to scour around for some firewood.  Chuck stayed warm by working himself into a horrible mental state.
     An hour later, Aim bumped back into the campsite, and none too soon.  The cold had set in with a vengeance, accentuated by a freezing and eerily melodious wind.  The boys, who had been warming their hands on Chuck's forehead, ran to meet the pickup.  They noticed Josh's absence.  "Omigosh!" Aim shouted.  He slapped himself on the head, made a sweeping u-turn and headed back up the ravine... again with Chuck in hot pursuit.
     "LEAVE THE FIREWOOD!!! LEAVE THE FIREWOOD!!!!"
     Aim had remembered the tent this time.  We saw it flapping in the wind as he drove past the fading light of our dying campfire.  I volunteered to look for more wood.
     At ten o'clock, Aim and Josh pulled into the campsite in Aim's car.  Tears had frozen into crystals on my cheeks by the time Chuck asked about the pickup.  "It's at home," Aim said.  "I was running low on g... Omigosh!"
     Even Chuck, after a squealing fit, agreed it was too late for Aim to go back.  I volunteered yet again, to scour further abroad searching for more wood.  We decided the boys should have the tent while the men bedded down by the fire... inches from the fire.  Alternately, we froze on one side and roasted on the other.  The only solution was to turn... and turn... and turn... like pigs on a spit over a grill in a freezer locker.  All night long... we turned.
     Several months later, when dawn grudgingly broke, Aim had disappeared... or maybe he was just covered with snow... yes, it snowed during the night.  We assumed Aim was looking for more wood, since the fire was down to twigs and pinestraw by this time.  Somehow, Chuck managed to get coffee brewing in the pitiful embers of our Sterno-sized blaze, and the warm smell was a welcome treat as it wafted through the frigid air of our frozen campsite. 
     "Is that coffee I smell?" Aim asked, crawling out of the boys' tent.
     "Yeah," Chuck answered, casting a suspicious eye in Aim's direction.  "What were you doing in the tent?"
     "I slept with the boys," Aim answered, eyebrows raised in absolute innocence.  "It sure was crowded in there," he complained.  "Hot, too.  We had to take off all our blankets."
     I thought about helping Chuck catch Aim, but I was frozen in place.  I wanted Aim to run so far away the boys couldn't hear the names Chuck was calling him.
     Later that day, after a somewhat airish, ten degrees below zero, thirty-mile ride in my topless Jeep, I was wrapped in blankets and laying on a heating vent in my living room when I got the call.  "I should know better than to go anywhere with you!  You're a maniac!  You're trying to get us both killed!  Your momma should have put you up for adoption...."

 Aim Gets His Name                         

"Train a child in the way he should go, but go there yourself once in a while."
                                                   James P. Redd, my granddaddy

     The Good Lord, in an exercise of His infinite and all-knowing wisdom, accords each of us with certain unenviable qualities to serve as reminders of our own mortality.  We should be proud that, for the most part, these reminders are nagging little hindrances that bother only the most insecure; a cowlick, freckles, or a penchant for procrastination, for instance.  On the other hand, there are those unfortunate few with a hindrance of monstrous proportions.  My friend, Aim Carsten, is one of the chosen few.  His legendary hindrance was, and still is, forgetfulness.  His inability to remember even the most significant fact or event or directive borders on being a Divine gift.  It was the magnitude of this recollective handicap that earned him, many years ago, his unusual name. 
     His daddy unwittingly conceived the name in 1958, the same year he had his nervous breakdown and went away for a while. Nobody ever said for sure, but it was generally whispered that he spent some time at the state hospital.  Anyway, wherever he went, he was never the same after his return.  I mention this unfortunate event because it occurred on the same occasion that young James Easum Carsten became... forever and all time... Aim.
     In 1958 every small town had a landmark which served as the local bus stop; a general store, a service station or a big tree, perhaps.  Our village was no different, and each weekday morning during the school year a rag-muffin group of high-spirited kids showed up at Miss Hattie's Grocery and Funeral Parlor.  Aim showed up seven days a week.  He also faithfully arrived well into June each year, or at least until enough people had reminded him that school was out for the summer. It was almost like he had to be retrained, but we all made allowances for him... except his daddy, of course.    
     Mr. Carsten never handled Aim's hindrance real well, which was not exactly front page news, because he didn't handle anything real well.  He seemed more comfortable with a catastrophe to scream and yell about.  Fortunately for him, with Aim around, he didn't have to wait too long between catastrophes.  From birth, Aim had an uncanny ability to get under his daddy's skin and set off a fuming and blustering rage, but other than a daily rampage, Mr. Carsten never did anything really crazy.  That is, until Miss Hattie's, a wasp nest and Aim's forgetfulness combined to set in motion a chain of events that ultimately landed him in the nut house... or wherever it was he went.
     On that particular summer day in late June of 1958, Aim went, as usual, to wait for the school bus... a normal day.  School was out (and had been for three weeks) but Miss Hattie was so old her memory was not much better than Aim's, and the two of them were having pinwheel cookies and wondering where the other kids were.  Miss Hattie was telling Aim a joke about wagon wheels when Mr. Carsten stormed through the door, ill-tempered as a turpentined dog.  He was so mad that Miss Hattie forgot to ask about Cheryl Morang and just mentally retreated into one of her famous huffs, mumbling and dusting the cookie jars.  (As far as anyone in the county knew, Cheryl Morang was a figment of Miss Hattie's distant past, or perhaps her imagination, but we all humored her, and when she asked, we told her that Cheryl Morang was doing well and had asked about her.)
     Aim had forgotten to mow the grass.  Normally, Mr. Carsten would have considered the fact that school had only been out for three weeks and the path to Miss Hattie's went right by the utility shed where the mower was kept.  That particular morning, he had other things on his mind.  He had just purchased the family's very first television set and the Mighty Mouse Cartoon Hour was on.  As you already know, Aim walked right past the utility shed and was patiently waiting for a school bus that would never arrive when his daddy showed up growling and hollering.
     Now let me say that this particular screaming fit seemed like all the ones before, as far as Miss Hattie and Aim could tell at the time, but little did either of them know that in a few short hours the Carsten world would change forever.  Actually, change is an understatement.  Mutate might be a better word.  I'll leave it to you to decide if the change was for the better or the worse.  There are mixed feeling here in Coal County.
     By the time they reached home, Mr. Carsten was condemning himself as bad as he was Aim, and so there could be no mistake, he faced Aim toward the utility shed, gave him a little shove and watched him disappear through the door.  Most days, this would have been enough, but not today... Mr. Carsten should have waited.
     Meanwhile, filled with great intentions and a burning desire to please, Aim surveyed the interior of the shed and sized up the task at hand, but before he could get to it, he noticed a wasp nest in one corner of the small outbuilding.  If there was one thing in the world Aim hated, it was wasps.  His mother was allergic.  Being a good son and aware of his recollective limitations, he knew if he waited, the wasp nest would be forgotten.  So with his mother's welfare in mind, he ran to the house for a broom. Two hours later and he had swept clean the back porch and all thirty-two limestone slabs that made a path to his daddy's pickup.  He was justifiably proud, and he paused to lean on his broom and admire a job well done, until a small growl from his stomach guided him to the kitchen where he threw together a couple of potted meat sandwiches for lunch.  Mr. Carsten caught up with him while he was still eating.
     Aim tried to explain, but Mr. Carsten was not in a listening mood.  With a potted meat sandwich in one hand and a broom in the other, Aim made a hasty retreat to the utility shed (with a good bit of encouragement from Mr. Carsten's belt being indiscriminately applied to his bouncing backside).  He hit the door to the shed at full tilt, and Mr. Carsten came to a screaming halt outside.  Out of breath, he blew like a bull and paced back and forth, head hung and eyes darting like a starving vulture waiting for the traffic to clear.  Finally, Aim pushed the mower out into the yard.  When he went back for the gas can, Mr. Carsten returned to his television.  He should have waited.
     Aim brought the gas can out and set it beside the mower.  He also brought out shovels, a pick-ax, buckets and chains.  During the next hour he put a cleaning on that utility shed the likes of which would have stood him proud in the eyes of a professional cleaning service.  By the time he had everything back in place, including the mower, that shed had never looked better... except for a wasp nest in one corner.
     A while later, Mr. Carsten went berserk.  His screams flushed birds from the trees and sent his dogs slinking away, tails tucked, to find a quiet place to hide.  Aim, as usual, listened contritely, eyes to the ground, but as suddenly as he satrted, Mr. Carsten calmed down and put his arm across Aim's shoulder.  "Come on, James," he said quietly, "Let me show you."
     He led Aim back to the shed, took the mower out into the yard, cranked it and placed Aim's hands on the jiggling handles.  Aim said he looked kind of stoop-shouldered when he walked back to the house.  Again, Mr. Carsten should have waited.
     Now Aim was determined to finish the job and finish it good... just as soon as he knocked down that wasp nest.  It pained him to think of his mother getting stung.
     Finally, the mission was accomplished, and the nest was down.  I know this for a fact, because Aim brought all the larvae up to my house, and we went fishing.  While we fished, Aim told me how his daddy had made him sweep and clean all day.  He also mentioned he had been to Miss Hattie's that morning because he forgot school was out, and we got a good laugh out of that one.  Aim was real good-natured about being forgetful.
     Mr. Carsten, of course, found the happily-idling mower right where he left it, and by the time Aim and I returned from fishing, he was gone for the summer.  Later that day, a somber Mrs. Carsten told us she found her husband mowing the gravel road in front of their house and laughing and crying at the same time.  She also, mentioned he was mumbling, "He's aimless.  He's just aimless, that's all.  He's aimless."
     Naturally, and I'm embarrassed to say this, we all started calling young James, "Aimless", but by the time Mr. Carsten resurfaced, we had shortened it to "Aim", and the name just stuck.

 Aim Fires Himself                        

"The tongue is as dangerous as a hand grenade."
                                                  James P. Redd, my granddaddy

In June of 1960 the Coal County Consolidated High School held its breath until Aim Carsten and I wandered out the door for the last time.  Some people claim to have heard the old building breathe a wheezy creaking sigh of relief.  We were high school graduates.  No!  No!  Wait a minute... more than that!  We were men!  Officially!... Unemployed men.

On television when a kid graduated from high school, loving cinematic parents encouraged him to hang around for a year or two, taking time to decide where life should drop him off.  Not so, in Coal County.  In Coal County a high school graduate without a job... actually, back in 1960, there was no such thing as a high school graduate without a job.  No one wanted to be the victim of a social elevator that had plummeted and crashed in the dismal depths of peer and parental disapproval.

No matter we were leaving for college in the fall, September was a looooong way off.  Three perfectly good months waited like a hungry vulture circling overhead... character builders... practice to be all growed up... parental revenge.  We had ninety days to labor.. or we could slither around at a level lower than a catfish, nay, a blood-sucking leech.  (This may sound a tad harsh to a younger generation, but in those days there was this thing called "work ethic".  The phrase is still in use today, but the meaning has obviously changed.)

I lined up a summer job before school let out, a promising career swinging a bush ax at briars, small trees, weeds and a general entanglement of sundry greens which each summer tried a hostile takeover of the power company's right-of-way... physical labor... killer physical labor, as it turned out.  My parents were very proud.  The nearer death I was at the end of each workday, the taller they stood.  I don't remember my graduation.  It was on a Monday night (after my first day at the power company).  Eight hours with a swing blade and getting stung fifteen or twenty times by hornets and wasps who didn't appreciate my swinging of the blade, and I slept through the ceremony.

Aim, whose faulty memory is legendary (as most of you already know) had forgotten to look for a job, but the day after graduation he got lucky when he stuck his fresh and eager face through the door at Gary Haines' Construction Company.  Old Man Gary had just lined up a new project to enlarge Gene Clifton's car dealership.  "The right place at the right time," he said, and he hired Aim to start the following Monday.  Aim's pay would be fifty dollars a week.  Ah, life was grand when a man had a jo... fifty dollars a week!  FIFTY DOLLARS A WEEK!  Aim was rich!  Rich and ready to celebrate!  Rich and ready to celebrate with his object d'amour.

Aim's girlfriend was the comely Becky Slaughter of Terrible Turner's Mountain.  Straightaway he called her, and with the pride only a working man can muster, he announced he was taking her to the Velvet Jacket, Alhurst's most expensive, if not finest, restaurant...  Just as soon as he got his first pay check.

Becky, at this magical point in her young life had only heard the wonders and delights of such a fine dining establishment.  Delicious fantasies swam through her head, sending her swirling around her bedroom like the star of a Disney film.  She danced through gaggles of elegantly dressed women and curtsied to straight-backed, black-suited and snooty escorts.  She swirled and swirled until she swirled to her open closet door.  When the dancers caught a glimpse of Becky's less-than-elegant wardrobe, the mental music stopped, and the snooty men and fancy women moved quietly off the dance floor, clucking their disapproval. 

Becky yelled for her mother.  She wanted the swirly feeling back and soon had the parental okay to remove a significant amount from her meager savings.  Twenty minutes later she was in Alhurst, purchasing a most expensive dress from a most expensive and exclusive establishment, Patty's Ye Olde Dress Shoppe.  An hour later she was back in her bedroom, and the swirly feeling had returned.  Her mental dancers moved back on the dance floor, and the orchestra struck up a lively tune.  There was unbridled joy in the Carsten/Slaughter world on Tuesday.

Wednesday found Aim with time on his hands... five long days before he could report to work... five long days before he could rise above leech level.  He was embarrassed to show his face outside the house, because he wasn't working yet, and he decided to hide the day away in his room, listening to the radio and thinking.  (Aim may have been the only person in the county who didn't know trouble was always lurking in the wings when he spent too much time thinking.)  It happened while he was sitting, Indian-style in the middle of his bed, finishing his third bologna, cheese and tomato sandwich.  A very well-meaning newscaster mentioned in passing that over the last fifteen years inflation had reduced the real value of the American dollar to sixty-seven cents.  Several hours of braodcasting had passed unnoticed between Aim's ears, but he picked this one sentence to remember, and he pondered on it.  He pondered so hard he didn't hear his favorite Platters song, "The Great Pretender"... and he pondered... and he pondered some more. 

Eventually he got a stubby pencil, licked the end of it and multiplied fifty dollars by sixty-seven percent.  The numbers startled him!  He was now making thirty-three dollars and fifty cents a week.  He'd taken a sixteen dollar and fifty cent pay cut just sitting in the middle of his bed!  After taxes and stuff, there was no telling how much would be left!  Or if any would be left at all!  He might be losing money!  The longer he pondered, the drearier he imagined his financial future.  A mental picture wormed its way into his brain... a picture of Becky sitting across from him... eating... in the most expensive restaurant in the world... his world, anyway.  So he decided to do what he did best.  He hung his head and pounded on the wall until his fists hurt.  Then he called Becky to cancel their date. 

Aim sorrowfully reported to her, in a seeming contradiction of terms, the deflation of his paycheck by inflation.  Or in terms she would understand, the sad state of his paltry financial future.  He wasn't sure he could cover the cost of one dinner at the Velvet Jacket, much less two.  "That dern inflation!" he complained, and he apologized and apologized.  Backy, always a sympathetic young lady, assured Aim she understood.  She withheld any mention of the expensive new dress out of a deep concern for Aim's bruised feelings.

After hanging up, it was Becky's turn to ponder.  She chastised herself for being so impulsively extravagant.  The dress cost a lot more than she could afford, and to make matters worse, it was frivolous.  With a tear in the corner of one eye, she called Patty Vince at the dress shop and asked if she could return the dress.  She told Patty that with inflation as bad as it was, she really could not make the purchase at this time. Patty assured Becky she could get a refund and mentioned she had heard something about inflation on the radio that day. 

After hanging up, it was Patty's turn to ponder.  Maybe there was more to this inflation stuff than she thought.  After all, it was on the radio.  Hmmmm.  Patty had stopped at Gene Clifton's Chevrolet that morning and they shook hands on a new car... but this inflation business.  She was worried, what with one dress already being returned.  She needed to rethink the purchase of a new car.  So with a tear in the corner of one eye, she called Gene Clifton.  Inflation was getting so bad, she told him, she didn't know if she could afford a new car.  Whatever inflation was, it had cost her some business this very day, and she was afraid to make a major purchase.  Gene assured her he understood and said he heard something about inflation on the radio that day, and here it was jumping up to bite him.  Boy!  That guy on the radio really knew what he was talking about.

Now it was Gene's turn to ponder.  Hmmmm. Gene had contracted just yesterday to expand his showroom, but he wouldn't be needing a bigger showroom if nobody was buying cars.  Maybe he should sit on this thing for a while and see what other tricks inflation had up its nasty little sleeve.  After all, he had already lost one deal.  So with a tear in the corner of one eye, he called Gary Haines.  He told Gary that with inflation as rampant as it was, he needed to cancel the expansion contract.  He already lost one deal because of it, and he was sore afraid.  Old Man Gary assured him he understood and said he heard something about inflation on the radio that day.  Hmmmmm.

Old Man Gary didn't even hang up the telephone.  With a tear in the corner of one eye, he dialed Aim's number and told Aim that inflation was so bad he would not be able to hire him after all.  Hiring new employees at a time like this just wasn't good business.  Aim assured him he understood and mentioned he heard about inflation on the radio.  Just a couple of hours ago, as a matter of fact.