FOR MY READING of “Up the On-Ramp to the Road to Riches,” episode thirty-one of Dead Air, Manuel — that is, Ray — sat virtually at my elbow, and he took notes.
I EXPECTED my flying-saucer-detector business to get a boost from the publicity it got from Baldy the Dummy, but Baldy’s plug had no detectable effect at all. I seemed to have been the only one to hear it. My parents hadn’t, none of my friends had, not even Porky White, in whose clam bar speculation about flying saucers was the favored topic of conversation.
I was particularly disappointed that Porky hadn’t heard the free publicity, because the clam bar was the source of most of my sales. One of my detectors sat there day after day detecting nothing and bringing me customers who wanted one just like it to sit on a table at home detecting nothing. I was pleased that this sales technique should work, but I was also amazed that people should want this gadget when they had never seen it do what it was advertised to do — detect a flying saucer. They bought detectors entirely on the strength of their not detecting any flying saucers. They were buying something that did nothing because they had seen with their own eyes that it did nothing.
“How stupid can they be?” I asked Porky.
“I’m not sure,” he said, “but I’ve got an idea, and I think that idea is giving me an idea about how to make more money on each detector.”
“Great!” I said, “because to tell you the truth there really isn’t much profit in them.”
“You’re kidding.”
“No.”
“Peter, how stupid can you be?”
“What?”
“Hey, I don’t want to make you mad at me, but why would you keep making the things if you’re not making money on them?”
“Oh, I’m making a little money on them,” I said, “and it’s kind of fun to make them, although it’s a little less fun each time — ”
“Just like making clam fritters,” he muttered.
“ — and I can’t ever stop making them because there’s always an order coming in, and when an order comes in I know that somebody’s waiting for a detector, so I figure I’m obligated, and I’ve got to make another detector.”
“Yeah, there’s always somebody walking in the door wanting another damned order of clam fritters, too.”
“Is this what they mean by the rat race?”
“I guess so,” he said. We both stood there for a moment in silence, wondering how we had gotten into the rat race. Then Porky sighed and shook himself like a wet dog and said, “Look, right now you’re selling each detector for twice the price of the parts, right?”
“Right.”
“Okay, so your cut is exactly equal to the cost of the materials, since you’re not charging anything for your labor.”
“Should I start charging for my labor?”
“No, too much trouble. What you should do is use fancier materials that cost more. Then when you double the cost of the materials, your cut will come to more.”
This seemed brilliant to me. “What a great idea!” I said. “I’ll make a fancy one right away, and you can have it here to show on the counter, right beside the basic model.”
In a couple of days, I brought Porky the deluxe model. It was identical to the original in every way, except for the materials. The base was mahogany, the uprights that held the wire were maple, the shaft that held the needle was walnut, and the warning lamp was red.
“Nice,” said Porky. “Very nice.”
It was a great success. It outsold the basic model two-to-one. Many people who had already bought basic models wished that they’d bought deluxe models, so Porky and I hashed out a trade-in policy. We took the basic models back at half their original price and applied that toward the purchase of a deluxe model.
“We could sell these again,” said Porky, looking one of the originals over. “They’re like new.”
“What should we charge?” I asked.
“The same as usual.”
“But they’re used,” I said.
“Nah, they’re not used. None of them has ever gone off, has it?”
“Well, no.”
“So, you couldn’t really say they’re used. They’ve been tested.”
“Tested.”
“Rigorously tested.”
I put a little sticker on each trade-in that said TESTED, and re-sold them at the original price, which made me a hundred-percent profit. It didn’t take a genius to see that the way to get onto the road to big bucks was to push the new models into the purchase stream and sell the trade-ins again and again. I figured I was on the way.
[to be continued]
Subscribe to The Personal History, Adventures, Experiences & Observations of Peter Leroy
Share The Personal History, Adventures, Experiences & Observations of Peter Leroy
Have you missed an episode or two or several?
You can begin reading at the beginning or you can catch up by visiting the archive or consulting the index to the Topical Guide. The Substack serialization of Little Follies begins here; Herb ’n’ Lorna begins here; Reservations Recommended begins here; Where Do You Stop? begins here; What a Piece of Work I Am begins here; At Home with the Glynns begins here; Leaving Small’s Hotel begins here.
You can listen to the episodes on the Personal History podcast. Begin at the beginning or scroll through the episodes to find what you’ve missed. The Substack podcast reading of Little Follies begins here; Herb ’n’ Lorna begins here; Reservations Recommended begins here; Where Do You Stop? begins here; What a Piece of Work I Am begins here; At Home with the Glynns begins here; Leaving Small’s Hotel begins here.
You can listen to “My Mother Takes a Tumble” and “Do Clams Bite?” complete and uninterrupted as audiobooks through YouTube.
You can ensure that you never miss a future issue by getting a free subscription. (You can help support the work by choosing a paid subscription instead.)
At Apple Books you can download free eBooks of Little Follies, Herb ’n’ Lorna, Reservations Recommended, Where Do You Stop?, What a Piece of Work I Am, and At Home with the Glynns.
You can buy hardcover and paperback editions of all the books at Lulu.
You’ll find overviews of the entire work in An Introduction to The Personal History, Adventures, Experiences & Observations of Peter Leroy (a pdf document), The Origin Story (here on substack), Between the Lines (a video, here on Substack), and at Encyclopedia.com.
Share this post