Tools

This blog came about out of frustration in regard to web content and search results years ago. Back then, the saying was "content was king," so I set off to create a lot content under the guise of fishing in Southwest Montana. The intention was to get more web traffic, mores than anything else. After a spell, I kind of forgot about that and came to relish the opportunity to vent, share, and hypothesize on the merits of life with my own voice. I can say what I want, how I want, and when I want. The viewer can read it or not, sometimes it's worth a read…sometimes…not so much. But, it al started with the idea of talking about Montana fly fishing…the good, the bad, and the ugly.
I gots me an ugly story today. I arrived at the shop about 8:15 after getting up around 5:00am to do some web work, run one kid to the bus, the other to school, with moment sin between try tin to get my old dog to gimp around in the subzero weather to take a dump before we head out for the day. The shop opens at 8:30 now BTW. So I run to Mama Macs to order breakie at 8:25, see a truck idling out front and I motion to the passenger - as the driver has his old head buried in the task of trying to read his phone - that I will be 5-10 minutes. I order quickly, head back to the shop, use the restroom, and am back in the shop at 8:27. Dude walks in and I tell hime Im not quite open yet to which he responds no big deal…al I need is a license today. I tell him it will be a few minutes as I have to turn everything on and that if he is in a hurry, he should run over to the gas station. As I'm powering things up, I ask if he is going fishing today to which he says no, but he did buy some neoprene gloves a few days ago and is looking forward to wearing them. I continue to turn lights/power on. He hangs out at counter and I tell him to head over to the license machine, which he does, Light are on now, I'm officially open, and the guy plops down his credit card and old license as I am booting the system up. I tell him that we can take a credit card for licenses, but that there is a $1.50 fee to do so. Before I get to tell him that he doesn't have to pay the fee if he uses cash…he goes off on how he has spent lots of money here because he wants to support the little guys and that this is the last time I'll ever see him and that all small businesses are going to lose to big box stores. Before he left, I asked him "what happened?" to which he had a bit of a random rant not unlike one that I could imagine myself making when I am semi-senile and truly suffering from bouts of paranoid delusion.
I had a hard time not following him out of the store and throwing a rock at his gold suburban with Washinton plates that he drove down form Big Sky for the day in. So, if you are that old dude and I happen to see you…I will curse you for lying to me about never seeing me again. If you know the dude, tell him he's a tool for me.
There are so many issue of wrong here, and I…someone that has been known to inadvertently piss off scores of humanity with an aoptheitc glance…am aware of the possibility of a lack of smiling enthusiasm at the prospect of opening early after running around a few hours with no breakfast and very little coffee…on 8 days without nicotine…to sell a license to somebody so that they can have it in their wallet as they drive around Bozeman while it's 0 degrees outside, may have come across as asshole behavior on my part. But, the reality is that I was just going about my morning, trying to get everything going so that I could get the dude his license. It appeared to me that despite all of my best efforts, the idea that I was asking him to be like everyone else that uses a credit card to pay for license was insulting his significance to humanity.
So, in closing…thank you to all of you kind souls out there that pay with cash for a fishing license and wait until we are actually open to come into the shop to buy one. Thank you also to all of you kind souls that understand that credit card companies charge us more money than we make on licenses, and when coupled with labor costs and account fees results in a net loss for licenses - yet appreciate the service we provide and don't mind helping offset those costs so that we are able to continue offering thus service. Don't be a tool and you won't get tooled!