“You want me to buy them?”
“No.”
The old man smiled.
“I want to know whether I'm allowed to throw them away without creating another millionaire.”
The businessman laughed so hard his sister came from the office.
“What happened?”
He showed her.
She rolled her eyes.
The auctioneer became serious.
“You know I felt bad about that.”
The businessman stopped laughing.
“About what?”
“Making fun of you.”
“You apologized years ago.”
“I know.”
The auctioneer looked toward the first wooden crate displayed near the wall.
“I still think about it.”
The businessman leaned against the counter.
“Why?”
“Because everybody remembers the part where I was wrong.”
“That's not why I remember it.”
“What do you remember?”
The businessman thought.
“The phone.”
The auctioneer smiled.
“Which one?”
“The first call.”
“Why?”
“Because until then I was still embarrassed.”
The businessman looked toward the old rusted plate.
“Then everybody changed because somebody with money wanted what I had.”
The auctioneer frowned.
“Isn't that normal?”
“Maybe.”
He shrugged.
“But I learned something.”
“What?”
“People laughing didn't prove the plates were worthless.”
“And people offering money didn't prove they were priceless.”
The auctioneer smiled slowly.
“You really did turn into a businessman.”
“No.”
His sister shouted from the office:
“He turned into a lecture.”
They laughed.
The auctioneer left the coffee can.
The parts were worth twenty-three dollars total.
The businessman mailed him a check.
The old man never cashed it.
Years passed.
The business added computerized inventory in the 1990s.
The owner resisted.
His sister forced it.
He complained that index cards had worked for years.
She asked:
“How many castings do we have now?”
He guessed.
She gave the real number.
He agreed to computers.
The first system was slow.
Green text.
Backups on disks.
Employees hated entering old records.
Months later, a customer called asking for an obscure casting.
Search took seconds.
The owner stared at the screen.
His sister smiled.
“Want the index cards back?”
He said:
“Don't get arrogant.”
Technology changed.
Business changed.
Farmers found parts through fax.
Then email.
Eventually websites.
The telephone rang less.
That made the owner strangely sad.
The title of his life, if he ever imagined one, had always involved a ringing phone.
In 1990, the sound meant possibility.
A farmer somewhere needed something he had.
By the early 2000s, orders arrived electronically.
Faster.
Cleaner.
Less conversation.
The owner insisted customers could still call.
Many did.
Older farmers preferred it.
“You the plate kid?”