OK, OK. I’ll tell the back-up story.

First, I just wanted to let PrestonSturges know that Sgt. CB also does all the dinner preparations M-F. Most days when there are no shootings, stabbings, drownings or setting people on fire he gets home an hour before me. Now, this perk does not come without a downside. You see, he reminds me of this fact ALL THE TIME. He tells total strangers. He can work it into a conversation with anyone. We could be buying a hammer and he would ask the guy if it works pounding meat because “I do all the cooking”. We could be at Fenway Park and he will buy a hot dog and tell the guy, “I’m so glad someone else is doing the cooking instead of me tonight.”

So, he got a bee in his bonnet that we need to do more to invest for the future. We’re getting .004% interest on our checking account and the rates on CDs aren’t much better. (Why is it that Greenspan has raised the rates 6 times and banks are paying “under the mattress” rates?)

He decided that we must now become landlords. Now, he rarely gets excited about any project and I usually end up doing all the legwork but this time he did it all. I kept shooting down everything he found until he told me he found THE place. A tiny house near two colleges that would be perfect to rent out to a student. Because of course, a student with a million dollars in student loans is the perfect person you want to owe you money on a monthly basis.

He made an appointment to view it on a Friday. I had hurt my back the week before and also had to see the chiropractor later that day so the plan was he would pick me up at work, we would go see the house and then he would drive me back. I would work a few more hours and then head up to the chiropractor. (My job is pretty flexible for that sort of thing.)

He picked me up in his unmarked cruiser and we headed to the house which was just 12 minutes away. He pulled onto a small cul-de-sac and noticed there’s a car in front of it. He said “there it is”. I said “where?”. He pointed, and I said “ I thought that was the shed for the house next door.” Boy, when he said tiny, he wasn’t kidding.

He pulled in front of the car, just past the house and said “get out here and I will park the car”. So, I got out and started walking back to the house as I am opening up my portfolio to take notes. I took a few steps and then I felt something bang into my legs and lower back as my whole body jerked forward. You know how your brain goes through a “I can’t believe what I think just happened, actually happened”. Sort of like when Clay gave me an eye debacling through my binoculars at the Big E show. Or when at the first AI2 show in Hartford (the only time I brought a sign) and he looked at me, pointed to my sign and looked at me again. I started crying and I never cry over stuff like that.

He got out of the car and said “why are you walking behind the car?!?” I said “why did you drop me off past the house, let me out and then back up??!?!?” (There were a few other choice words in there.)

I said “You didn’t even apologize”. He said “I did, when I was still in the car.” Uh, OK, that makes me feel better-except NOT.

He told me later as I recanted this story to his mother that he thought the curb was too high for me to get out without banging my door so he dropped me off and then was going to get closer to the curb. Nice try. We were on a dead end street in the middle of nowhere and I can see why you would be afraid that your car door would get swiped by a squirrel on a motorcycle or something.

Now remember, I was already on my way to the chiropractor so now my back and neck are quite uncomfortable. It did hurt although I never got knocked down or anything. I don’t even remember much about the house, except the fact that my pantry is bigger than that bathroom. I told the story to my chiropractor and he wanted to know if Sgt. CB was planning on paying for the house with my life insurance policy.

He loved the house of course so I let him get it. (Little CB calls it the Little House in the Ghetto) We closed just before his birthday so I didn’t have to tie any shoes this year. I also had been bugging him to let me get a new laptop and after that incident, he didn’t object any more.

I wonder if I let him run me over if I can bid on some stub hub front row seats…..

Today’s Marketing blog word of the day is TCHOTCHKE. That’s pronounced Cha Tch Key. Alternate spelling is chachka.

Tchotchkes are those stupid little giveaways that I used to have at my tradeshow booth that have my company name on them. Usually people give away pens or things but I always try to have something with a theme. The problem is that most people just grab the tchotchke and run. I stand there in the booth and just get madder and madder. I end up yelling at them which is not really good for business. If the tradeshow is boring, you go around other booths and trade tchotchkes. I got engraved luggage tags one year which I traded for a train whistle. Those train whistles were a big hit. That had three tones and sounded exactly like a train. So many guys came up to me and said they needed two for two kids. I always asked them what their wife would say about that and they usually slinked out of the booth. If they were especially rude, I would give them the two because I knew their wife would beat them senseless after 20 minutes of two of those babies blasting through the house.

Alternate meanings for tchotchke/chackka is an inexpensive showy trinket (AKA Jemock) or a mistress. I think I want to be Clay’s chackka. Would that make me a Clotchchke?

Seems everyone has been designing and trading tchotchke as the pin craze is out of control in Clay Nation.

Of course, if you pronounce it really fast, it sounds like crotch key. Does anyone know a good locksmith?

Also if you don’t pronounce it right, it could sound like ChaCha. Coincidentally, those are Clay’s initials. So, if I was Clay’s Clotchchke, I could do the chacha with CHA. Of course, I’d still rather play doctor.