The Computer Buzz

April 2nd, 2009

Nome and Paul Van Middlesworth - owners - The Computer Factory
 

Cactus in the Dumpster

Nome and I were heading for The Friars Folly Bistro after work. It was "Girls Gone Wine Wednesday" and the wine is always half price. The alley behind Fry's (we call it Fry's avenue) provides a short cut directly to Restaurant Row. As we came out of the alley into Fry's back parking lot I spotted someone standing in Fry's dumpster.

"Hey Nome, that guy looks just like Cactus Jack," I said as I slowed the car. Nome looked over her shoulder. "It is him, step on it, he hasn't seen us yet," she practically screamed.

Nome doesn't like Cactus Jack. He drinks whiskey, chews tobacco, swears, belches, scratches and says whatever is on his mind no matter who's around. Jack's long salt and pepper beard has permanent yellow tobacco stains at the corners of his mouth. His battered leather cowboy hat and his face are a perfect match for each other in both color and texture.

Jack owns the Rainbow Computer Emporium in the backcountry a mile east of Rainbow. Jack hates his customers and computers. Jack says, "Customers are like chickens, feed em as little as you can git away with and take as much as you can git."

I can understand Nome's distaste for Jack but I can't help admiring him a little. He may be pure evil but he is a man's man and beholden to no one. "My Way" was written for Jack.

I swung the car around to the dumpster. Nome slid way down in her seat trying to be invisible. I yelled out to Jack,"Whatcha doin neighbor." Jack looked up at me and grinned as he threw an armload of boxes into his pick-up truck. Jack pushed his hat back and wiped his sweaty face with a filthy bandana "What do ya think I'm doin, I'm fixin to make me a pile a money," He leaned his arms on the front of the dumpster like he was standing at the rail of a cruise ship.

"You're selling scrap cardboard," I asked incredulously.

"Course not," sneered Jack, "Them's all boxes from Apple products. I just cut the logos off em."

"How can you make money doing that?"

"You Bambi's don't know nothing," scowled Jack impatiently. "Don't you know what an Apple logo is worth?"

Suddenly it dawned on me. "Are you talking about what Steve Ballmer, the CEO of Microsoft, said last week about people paying an extra $500 for a PC just for the Apple logo?"

"Bingo," said Jack, "Thing is I already knowed all about it. I've been cutting the logos off'n these Apple boxes and putting on my computers and other stuff for the past year. People pay a fortune for em".

"Your kidding right? Nobody in their right mind would fall for that"

Jack shook his head sadly "Man you ain't been payin attention to what's goin on lately. Things ain't like they used to be. Plenty of folks have flat give up on thinking for themselves. They run on pure emotion or whatever the TV tells em. They'll pay a fortune for a T-shirt with "Abercrombie and Fitch" all over it. Who'd a bought T-shirt with "Fig Leaf" or "Haynes" written all over it twenty years ago? Some folks is plumb crazy. They been told that Apples cool so they'll pay anything for stuff with an Apple logo."

"How in the world do you find these people?" I asked.

"Nuthin to it," said Jack. "I go to shopping malls and stick my ads on the windshield of all the cars with Obama bumper stickers"

With that Jack crawled out of the dumpster and headed across the parking lot toward a car that was pulling out. "That'ns got an Obama sticker and a peace sign too. That's easy money," Jack yelled as he took off in pursuit.

Somehow I found the wine particularly tasty that evening.