Ghost Moose

Today on the paper route we saw a moose!!

Finally, after almost two months of watching and looking and wanting to see a moose, we sort of, kind of, maybe, we think, it can't be anything else, can it? We saw a moose. The distance was bout 50 yards, it was the half-light of 5AM and we had just kicked up a bunch of dust from our least favorite dirt road; then we saw it!

That shadow over there, did that just move? Look!

So we decided it must be a moose, because it was too big and ran wrong to be a horse. Way too big for elk, and way-way too big and too dark for deer.

For clarification, that does in fact mean that there is a paper route in my life. The Lewiston Tribune starts each and every day off right, kind of like one of the more healthy cereals. Except not because I'm always hungry at the end of it. We have about 100 customers, four newspaper racks, and one (sometimes two) sacks to drop off at the post office. We drive about 79 miles, use five plastic bags, and we are gone 2 hours and 45 minutes.

This little job manages to pay for it's own gas and make our rent and utility payments. Mostly we do it for the wildlife though. So far we have seen deer (antlers and none, spotted and older), raccoons, pheasants, quail, owls, hawks, mice, the moose, a fox, horses (even in the road once), cows (in the road quite often actually), porcupines, and we even hit a coyote. The coyote must have been fine, we went back to look and couldn't find hide not hair. But it made a loud THUD and the front plate has head-

My face is in the paper!

sort of...

I have a new job now. The interview a couple weeks ago was really not an interview, it was more a chance to give me the paperwork. Phil, my new manager, walked in and said, "Hi, we're very interested in having you, if you're interesting in joining us." So, since I hadn't had any other offers -- Jack in the Box never even called me back -- I decided to join the cars sales team at Karl Tyler Motors.

I know nothing about cars, especially nothing about trucks. Which is a shame, because that's sort of something we do best here at Karl Tyler Motors. But they said that was ok, because I know how to be nice to people and I can learn cars.

Back to the story about me being in the newspaper -- it's not that big a deal. They have an ad running in the local edition of Auto Finder and there are pictures of all the Sales Consultants (that's technically my job title) across the bottom.

Today I hope to sell a used Ford Taurus SES and take a lady on a test drive of a 3/4 ton crew cab Chevy Silverado Duramax Diesel 2500HD pickup (with gooseneck trailering). Both customers stopped by yesterday and the Taurus lady took the car home overnight to show her husband. He's harvesting and can't take the time to come in. (Great! Two things I don't know, cars and farming! But I don't think I annoyed her and she left pretty excited about the car, so I'm hopeful.) The lady with the truck wants to test drive it pulling her horse trailer. She was convinced that we wouldn't let her, BUT, we are an amazingly nice, people-centered dealership and we are going to let her as soon as we can plan a time.

When I'm not busy talking to customers -- about 95% of the time -- I still haven't really figured out what a cars salesman is supposed to do. Mostly I sit around and eat Twizzlers. And read owners manuals in the hope that someday I will need to know how to convert the Avalanche from truck to SUV and back again. It's really not that hard.