Lightning Rods Read Online Free PDF Page A

long time before people catch up with you. If they ever do. You’ve got to know you’re right, because they sure as hell won’t. People are going to give you a lot of grief. A lot of grief. So if you can’t take it, Joe, let’s call it quits right here and now.
    What he thought was: I don’t know if I have what it takes or not. I’ve never really been tested. I’ve never had the chance to find out what I’m capable of. But I know one thing. It’s one thing to try, and do your best, and fail. All you can ever do is give something your best shot, and sometimes that’s just not enough. But it’s another thing to not even try. This is the first time I’ve had a chance at something really big. If I just walk away from it, what does that make me?
    “Look, Joe,” he said. “Let’s not get too serious here. I’m not saying it won’t be a lot of work. But it should be a lot of fun, too. Are you having such a good time selling vacuum cleaners? And OK, you may get some funny looks. But just try to see the humor in it. Besides, at the end of the day, you’re doing everybody a favor. That’s something to feel good about. So just do the best you can, and remember, if it all goes horribly wrong, you can always shoot yourself.”
    He was grinning. He slipped off his shoes and socks and rolled up his pants, and he walked up the cool soft sand of the low bank beside the road, and then down onto the beach. The sand near the road was choppy, warm where the sun hit it, cool where the hollows were in shade. Then the sand was firm and ribbed, and then it was flat and wet.
    The line of pelicans was coming back along the waves. He watched them, shading his eyes.
    “Look at those beautiful birds,” he said. “Is there one single thing wrong with them, Joe? Does a pelican have one single thing to be ashamed of?”
    He was walking along in the shallow water. He turned to face the sea and put his hands around his mouth.
    “ MY NAME IS JOOOOOOOOE !” he shouted. “Yabba dabba DOOOOOOOOOOO !”

SO LONG ELECTROLUX
    The first thing he did was he returned the Electrolux and its accessories.
    “Well if it isn’t the hot shot!” The head of the sales reps was in a meeting. His secretary had been interrupted in the middle of a book by Danielle Steel and was none too pleased at having to break off and check the vacuum cleaner back in.
    “Not such a hot shot after all, I guess,” he said.
    The girl was looking at him mockingly.
    “I guess I just don’t have what it takes.”
    He said this with a quiet conviction that is rare in salesmen.
    “Don’t be so hard on yourself,” the girl said. She was still looking at him mockingly, but there was a kind of undercurrent of sympathy.
    “Now the guy who was there before me was a real operator,” said Joe.
    “Believe me, I know,” said the girl.
    “If you ever want some testimonials for the product, you should talk to some of the people there. They’ve all got these stories about how it saved their life after Hurricane Edna.”
    “Yeah, we keep getting letters from them. That’s why I’m saying, don’t be too hard on yourself. Billy Graham couldn’t have sold a vacuum cleaner in Eureka. Billy Graham could have gone door to door telling people he had vacuum cleaners that were personally endorsed by Jesus K. Christ, and he would not have sold one single one. Ed has a kind of mischievious sense of humor is all. If he’d have given you the chance to show what you could do in some other district it might have been a different story.”
    “Well, it may turn out to be a blessing in disguise,” said Joe. He was looking at the girl. His eyes kept being drawn to her breasts and then he would smoothly keep moving his gaze on as if it had just happened to travel past her breasts en route to checking out the pencil sharpener. He’d spent a lot of time on his own, after all. This kind of thing must happen all the time when the sales reps came in after a long time on the road. “Do you