Good morning Mr. Brewer, your car is ready.

 Mike is not a quiet, reserved sort of guy. For some unremembered reason I was at his folks while he retold a woeful story of incompetence. This part I'll make short, his car was in for servicing and they didn't get it done as fast as he wanted. They did finally meet his needs, fix it and return it to him...now he was blowing steam!End of story? Not on your life!

Some background, I had been a friend of the entire family for a few years and got to see some of these little vignettes develop . Mike worked for an airline in Boston. On the reservation desk, that's how you used to book flights before gadgets took over. And I had his phone number at the desk. So, now the rest of the story.

Because we knew each other to well for me to call and do this myself, I recruited an accomplice, Frank to make the call. After a few moments of script rehearsal I place the call and we're off. Good morning Mr. Brewer this the Assistant Manager at the dealership calling to tell you that your car is ready for pick-up. And he's off and running. Remember the counter at an airline is many booths long. They are all filled with Mike's co-workers, listening to him, as he tells them "the blanketty blank fools don't even know where the car is, I got it last night!" "This is going to be fun!" After several minutes Mike and Frank "trying to figure out how Mike can get his car", Frank tells him that perhaps the General Manager could solve the problem more to Michael's satisfaction. Phone to me, You can't get no satisfaction Mike..."Hey Michael, how they hangin"? The proverbial moment of silence followed by, "Max you SOB" and a few other things I hope no customers heard.

Sometime afterwards I flew on his airlines, upgraded, thank you Mike and the hostess says to me "since it's your birthday, would you like some champagne"? Mike getting even...nice touch the bubbly, of course I made sure that the hostess was aware of the entire event and told her, feel free to pass it forward. Still, the champagne was nice, thanks Mike.