Here’s A Million Dollars
What would you do if someone offered you a million dollars?
The above was a question asked of me by my grandfather. Although I was very young and he was close to 70, I enjoyed talking to him in spite of the age difference. It was his mature queries like this that I found interesting.
Maybe that’s why I asked the same question to others when adult conversation faltered years later. The question would often encourage connection between two divergent personalities who had little in common other than trying to make a buck in say — real estate or related fields.
Joe The Exterminator
His name was Joe something — I’ve forgotten his last name but not his answer to the question I’d inherited from my grandfather.
Joe was a man in his middle 70s. A recovering alcoholic, still addicted to cigarettes he may have been the one individual still standing that looked like he’d passed away a number of years prior.
He had been my exterminator since I’d started owning and managing apartments in the City of Philadelphia.
A simple man who had worked all his life in a very necessary profession in a large city like Philly.
He labored on his own, never had a helper as far as I know; a life devoted to the humble but essential profession dedicated to extending the time it will be before insects take over the world. A losing battle however noble.
Somewhere along the line Joe had incorporated and started a one man firm creatively named Joe’s Extermination.
He was given a retainer of $40.00 a month to routinely spray my apartment buildings in Center City. If there was a specific problem (an invasion of roaches, bed bugs, wasp nests, rats and/or mice….) he’d be paid extra.
Joe and I got together once a month in my office to discuss developments in the world of entomology as it affected my properties.
The topics of conversation usually branched out from there.
I can say, I truly enjoyed our discussions.
It was during one of our bull sessions that I posed the question to Joe I found so fascinating when my grandfather ask me those many years ago. The conversation extender that I’d asked others during a lag in the discourse.
“Joe,” I asked apropos of nothing in particular, “What would you do if someone gave you a million dollars?”
Surprisingly Joe, a man use to monthly paychecks of $40.00 replied immediately, “I’d expand!” he said emphatically.
“I can see a red neon sign, Joe’s Extermination. Maybe with a blue cockroach,” he fantasized wistfully.
“What do you mean?” I asked, curious at the assuredness of his prompt reply.
He then got a far away look in his eyes and said, “I’d open a Joe’s Extermination in Harrisburg,”
Harrisburg is Pennsylvania’s capital about 100 miles west of Philadelphia.
“Oh, you’d hire employees?” I questioned.
“Nah, I’d handle it myself,” Joe countered.
Unfortunately Joe passed away before anybody had a chance to give him a million dollars, ruining his chances for expansion.
His singular workforce in Philadelphia was supplanted by his son.
Joe Jr never even bothered to add Jr to the name of the company.
.