What was that?!

For years I sold or serviced mats, mops, cleaning supplies, anything to do with cleanliness, and my company always prided itself on it's wonderful processes and procedures.

"We aren't always the cheapest, but we're the best!", we would tell customers.

"We may be a little bit more expensive, but hey, you get what you pay for!", was one of our favorite slogans.

"Our cleaning process is the best in the business. You're mats are put through a thorough sterilization, cleaning, and inspection process before they're delivered to you by our professional service representatives. So they come back clean,on time, at the right time, every time." was another marketing slogan.

What that really meant was. "we wash your stuff, hope we get all the crap off of it that YOU LEFT ON IT, roll it up and send one of our drivers out to you if he hasn't been involved in an accident because he was talking on his cell phone, or stoned, while operating our vehicle."

So it was important to check every sales sample before we left the warehouse because we never new what kind of shit was going to be on a towel, mat, mop, or even soap dispenser. All the warehouses I worked in, were either located in the inner city, in a bad neighborhood, or out in the middle of nowhere, where no one wanted to commute, and dental hygiene was not a priority for many of the employees. In either case, the chance for a production slip up was always a possibility. Don't get me wrong, my partners in production were great but sometimes things would "slip through the cracks".

As a manager, I would go with reps on what we termed "Target Account" calls because I had more experience most of the time, and usually big company buyers want the respect of having some stupid manager with the rep. Half the time these purchasing people were trained to be jerks, so if the rep brought a jerk of his/her own along (ME), then it balanced out the power in the sales call. Jerk = Jerk, and you have equilibrium.

In this particular case my rep Kenny, needed me to go with him to call on a large, local super market chain. It was approximately 20 stores in Southern California and represented a great deal of money for us if we got it. Kenny was extremely nervous about the account, since he had never presented or even talked to an account of this size before. The process for Target Accounts was always longer and involved many meetings, so I told him:

"Don't sweat it. Just make sure you have all your samples ready. This will just be a meet and greet. Ya know, question and answer session? We need to find out what they really want in a service. The hard part comes later." , I told him and boy was I right about that.

"Cool. Cool. I'm just a little nervous is all.", he said as we grabbed our stuff and got into his car, "Not used to accounts this big."

"You'll do fine. Did you check and make sure all our samples are good?"

"Yep. We're good", he said and I was confident he knew what he was talking about. Bad move on my part.

We went to the account, and I was under the impression we were meeting with a junior buyer, or a purchasing associate, but it turned out we were meeting with the Head of Purchasing, Dave, and his assistant, Tammy. I wasn't sure if Kenny was prepared for this type of call. Or if I was even prepared, so we did a quick pre-call plan in the car on the way to the meeting to ensure our success.

The corporate offices were located in a seedy little section of LA off of Santa Monica Boulevard. It was the original store and the family had decided to keep it's headquarters there for sentimental value. Not a great idea, since the store was now covered on one side with graffiti, and the neighborhood was crawling with drug addicts. Mostly "tweekers", or people who do crystal meth, speed, etc. The type of druggies you see scratching themselves all the time in front of convenience stores in the California Desert, asking for change. I assumed this particular store's biggest selling items were Coke and candy bars, staples of a drug addled diet. I tried not to touch anything as we walked through the main entrance and towards the offices which were in the back.

Surprisingly the inside of the store were really nice, and it was very, very clean. I could see why people would want to shop for groceries here, and was happy when an administrative assistant spotted us and led us up some stairs to the company's corporate offices. She led us down a hallway and into a conference room with a long beautiful mahogany table, nice chairs, and a beautiful High Definition television positioned perfectly on the far wall. As we waited, Kenny and I salivated at the sight of the HD TV which must have been at least 60 inches.

"Be nice to watch the Super Bowl on that thing.", Kenny said, and I just grunted approval. Men are weird about electronics, it's the same for women and make up. There's an almost primal connection for both sexes to these particular types of consumer goods.

The Head of Purchasing, Dave, came out and greeted us with his assistant Tammy, who was an incredibly pretty blonde girl, with enormous breasts, which she displayed prominently in a low cut, tight fitting, blouse. She was tall, and beautiful, an obvious tool for Dave to use to distract reps and get a better deal for his company. Kenny just stared at her chest and didn't even acknowledge her face or Dave's extended hand, while I on the other hand tried to stay focused. It was difficult but I took a seat near Dave while Kenny was transfixed and said very little.

Dave began the call by explaining he and Tammy had very little time, and that he'd like to see what we were offering with our pricing immediately. This was a ploy to get us to spill our guts, but I handled the request with a few questions to find out what they needed first. Meanwhile, I think Kenny was in sensory overload, first by Tammy's beauty and secondly the size of the HD television; because he was nearly catatonic. For the first 15 minutes of the call he said nothing.

As I continued with the call, asking questions of Dave, and waiting for his guarded responses. (Again, purchasing people are trained to be this way) I sensed Kenny slowly coming out of his reverie and averting his eyes from Tammy's chest. In fact, at one point he even asked a question, "What chest...I mean what best describes a company you would do business with?"

"I guess a company that offers us something unique.", was Dave's answer.

Suddenly, as if Dave had slapped him, Kenny stood up quickly and said, "I think we have just what you need. Let me show you." He walked quickly over to our samples and grabbed a rolled up mat. He was smiling and walking, as he looked at both Dave and Tammy, obviously beaming now with confidence. He really looked like the "cat that ate the canary".

"We offer unique logo mats. Mats where we can even put a picture of your store on the mats and they won't wash off. The colors and image are woven into the fabric, so it stays that way for the life of the mat!", he spoke with such enthusiasm, he could hardly contain himself. He held the mat in one hand and worked at rolling the rubber band off of it in order the spread it out on the floor or even on the table. Keep in mind only the rubber back of the mat was exposed and so the logo was not visible to anyone, including myself. Our company rolled them this way to protect the logo and carpeting from wearing out early.

Kenny set the rolled up mat on the table, and with one hand he held the end, while with the other hand he slowly rolled the mat out on the conference table in order to expose the beautiful logo. Or what he thought was a beautiful logo. As he slowly rolled the mat out on the table, a detailed picture of a car was slowly being revealed to all of us. But as he got to the end of the mat all of the sudden a little brown mouse popped out from the unrolled portion and leaped onto the mat! It scurried across the table and onto the floor so fast none of us had time to react. We all jumped back in surprised and frightened.

"What the hell was that?!", Dave shouted and jumped back.

"A mouse, it was a mouse!", his assistant Tammy shouted and jumped up from her chair looking for the mouse as she leaped up and down screaming, " A mouse, a mouse!", she was so hysterical her breasts nearly popped out of her blouse.

Kenny and I were equally surprised and needed to act quickly to resolve the situation, but he seemed transfixed by the site of Tammy jumping up and down, and did not move from his chair. In fact, I was the only one who reacted. I leaped up from my chair and held my arms out, as if I was guarding the mouse in a basketball game.

"Where did it go?", I shouted and stepped back slowly from the table.

"It's under the table.", Dave answered. "You can't let that thing into the store, we'll be sighted by the Health Department." He also stepped slowly away from the table.

"What do you want me to do Dave?"

"Catch it you idiot. Before Tammy has a heart attack, and before it gets into the store!", he yelled, while his assistant continued to jump up and down screaming. Her performance kept Kenny transfixed. He never moved, just watched her jumping and jiggling.

I moved slowly so I wouldn't disturb the mouse and noted that the conference room door was closed; I figured it had to be in the room. Tammy continued to scream until Dave shouted at her, "Tammy shut up. You're going to scare it!". She stopped jumping up and down and shouting. Kenny immediately came to his senses.

"Where is it?", he said and got up slowly from his chair.

"I don't see it anywhere I said. I think it might be under the table."

All four of us backed away from the table and looked underneath to try and spot the mouse. Since it was brown and the carpet was tan, this task was nearly impossible. We all moved slowly looking intently, even Tammy, who was shaking and visibly frightened.

"I see it.", said Kenny and he moved slowly towards a corner of the room, "It's in the corner. Nobody move."

" I see it too.", I said and then Dave confirmed it's position, "Me too.", he said. You could spot this little brown ball over in the corner. It's black eyes looking out as it moved back and forth trapped.

" I don't wanna look.", his assistant added and tried to look away but she couldn't.

" Tammy just stay still don't move. Kenny I'll try to get it to move towards you and you try to grab it.", I said.

"What the hell do I grab it with?", he answered.

"Throw the mat on top of it and then maybe we can get a jar or something to get it out of here."

"Good idea. Just cover it.", Dave added. "Then we can figure out what to do with it."

"Just don't kill it.", Tammy interjected. "It's just a little mouse."

"Okay. Okay. We'll try not to. I'm gonna move towards you Kenny grab the mat."

"Got it.", Kenny held the mat like a net, crouching, as if he was going to cast it over the mouse as it ran away.

I stepped towards the mouse and it bolted following, along the walls of the room. Kenny rushed after it while it moved around the room quickly. Hunch over while he moved, he was so focused on covering the mouse that he ran forward with the mat trying to cover it, and straight into Tammy's chest. He bounced off of her breasts, tried to grab them to prevent his fall and then he fell back onto the carpet with the logo mat flying into the air and Tammy screaming. The mouse, frightened by the noise made a mad dash for the door, and Dave seeing his only chance to stop the rodent from getting into the store grabbed a large, bound, report on the table and threw it on top of the mouse. It landed with a resounding thud on the floor.

"Got him!", he shouted, "I'm pretty sure I got him. He's under that blue binder." He stood over the binder, I was in the corner of the room, Kenny was on the ground, and Tammy was standing over him.

"Oh gross!", Tammy yelled.

"What did you want me to do. He would've got into the store.", Dave responded.

"Not that. Him. He grabbed my breasts", she said and pointed at Kenny who was still on the ground, but sitting up now.

"It was an accident.", he exclaimed and this time he was right. She was so tall he wasn't paying attention to her and he had run face first into her chest. I don't think he had intended to do so, but he didn't seem unhappy with the outcome.

"Yeah I don't think he was trying to do that Tammy. He was trying to catch the mouse.", I interjected. Dave nodded in agreement. Kenny go to his feet and sat in one of the empty chairs.

"Either way, he still grabbed my breasts. Uggh...I feel violated.", she looked at Dave.

"Sorry about that. It wasn't intentional. I was falling backwards and the mouse startled me.", Kenny reiterated his point. Tammy wasn't listening, she was glaring at Dave.

"Tammy I'm sure it wasn't intentional. But guys I think the meeting is over. We need to get this cleaned up, and frankly I think we're all too startled to continue. Leave your cards and I'll contact you later for a proposal."

"Sorry about all this.", I said, "We'll pick up all of our stuff, but I'd like to reschedule if possible."

"Sure.Sure. Call me Monday next week.", Dave said obviously still stunned. He smiled a little. " But just you, not him", he said and pointed at Kenny.

"That's fine.", he said, "I understand. But please understand all that was an accident. We don't normally have mice in our mats."

"Ha ha. I know. Let's just get past this and get back to work.", Dave said.

"Got it. Thanks." , I said. Kenny moved slowly out of his chair and towards his samples. Tammy moved away from him and towards the door.

"Dave, are we done here? I'm just gonna go to my office. That was the craziest thing I've ever seen. I was accosted by a rat, and a mouse was squashed in front of me.", she said, shot Kenny a dirty look, and headed out the door.

"Sure. We'll talk in a few minutes. I need to escort these guys out, before they leave else here like a cockroach or a rat."

"Very funny Dave.", she left and headed down the hallway.

"Don't worry, she'll be fine.", he said, "follow me guys."

Kenny and I grabbed our samples, shook Dave's hand, and said "thank you"; he led us out of the Conference Room, down the stairs, and back into the neighborhood of drug addled street urchins. I told him I would call him on Monday, knowing full well he would not take my call, and we loaded up Kenny's care with our sample products. Kenny got behind the wheel, and I jumped in the passenger side. Kenny slowly drove out of the parking lot and as we got on the freeway he looked over at me.

"Best sales call ever!", he said and started laughing.

"I agree!", I answered.

-M"