Fishing For a Sale

A keen country lad applied for a salesman’s job at a city department store. In
fact it was the biggest store in the world – you could get anything there. The
boss asked him, “Have you ever been a salesman before?”

Yes, I was a salesman in the country,� said the lad. The boss liked the cut of
him and said, “You can start tomorrow and I’ll come and see you when we close
up.”

The day was long and arduous for the young man, but finally 5 o’clock
came around. The boss duly fronted up and asked, “How many sales did you make
today?”

“One,” said the young salesman.

“Only one?” blurted the boss, “most of my staff makes 20 or 30 sales a day.
How much was the sale worth?”

“Three hundred thousand dollars,” said the young man.

“How did you manage that?” asked the flabbergasted boss.

“Well,” said the salesman “this man came in and I sold him a small fish hook,
then a medium hook and finally a really large hook. Then I sold him a small
fishing line, a medium one and a huge big one. I asked him where he was going
fishing and he said down the coast.

I said he would probably need a boat, so I took him down to the boat
department and sold him that twenty-foot schooner with the twin engines. Then he
said his Volkswagen probably wouldn’t be able to pull it, so I took him to the
car department and sold him the new Deluxe Cruiser.”

The boss took two steps back and asked in astonishment, “You sold all that to
a guy who came in for a fish hook?”

“No,” answered the salesman “He came in to buy a box of Tampons for his wife
and I said to him, ‘Your weekend’s shot, you may as well go fishing.”