Doldrums

February is traditionally a slow month for us and this year didn't disappoint. We're usually done with the paying work by lunchtime, Harry takes 3 hour lunches, Indian makes his yearly pilgrimage to worship at Daytona, and PDB and I are left to our own devices.

So we're a couple weeks into the February doldrums and the shop has been reorganized, projects we've put off are getting done - making calls hounding customers to pay outstanding bills, going through the 'you never know' cans of parts and hardware culling the shit you never will use, cleaning in all the crevices we're too busy to clean the rest of the year, new shelves for the service manuals, redoing the parts inventory to keep up with changes, and trying to clean Harry's shit pile desk a little at a time so he doesn't notice - and doing little shit on our own cars. Needless to say, PDB and I still have too much free time. Not a good thing.

We've already designated Fridays 'Indian Sucks Ass Day' and annotated all the calendars and the appointment book. We make lewd - anatomically correct - snowmen and women, much to Harry's, and the mayor's, chagrin. And we play practical jokes. An empty plastic oil jug makes a hell of a noise when you screw the cap back on and put it behind someone's tire. Hooking the old bell for the gas pumps to the toilet seat - lift the seat, the bell over your head starts clanging - gets a rise out of folks too.

So by now, everybody is waiting expectantly for March, when the work will pick up and nobody has to look over their shoulders until next year. Well, except for the Indian. His life will be a living Hell for the next couple weeks because he has to pay for taking two weeks off and calling in every other day to remind us how warm it is in Florida.