Salt

Salt. 

The windshield housings on my car were frozen solid.  I had lifted the blades, as I am wont to do at times, to keep the rubber from freezing to the glass.  Well, that worked, but here I was with another scenario that for a while had me completely flummoxed.  

So with January in the Midwest going through some ferocious below-zero temperatures a few weeks back, anything can happen and you have to be prepared.  But this?  No.  No.  No.  So I went to visit YouTube.  Although my specific problem was not addressed, some videos did give me an idea.

Salt.

So I came back into the house and found a rather large bottle of rough-ground sea salt.  This compound, once generously sprinkled over the ice, surely would make my job of releasing the encased housings easier.  After several applications, despite the frigid temperature, I was able to jiggle the ice away from the housings and eventually move the blades back and forth.

Salt.

One word.  One word that gave me an idea I hadn’t thought about.  Why?  I don’t know.  But when you’re in a pickle the mind often goes to where it ought not to go and that’s to the negative side of the equation.  It’s only until the gray matter sparks a light to shine on the positive side that you see the end of the problem.  

I find this is the reaction I get a lot when I introduce a completely new brand of cigar to an owner or manager.  Why?

Fear. 

Ohhhhhh. That devil of doubt.  Yes, fear that the cigar, since it is an unknown brand in their minds – WON’T SELL!  Heaven help us.  Flip fear!  What if the unknown brand SELLS?  Had that thought ever occurred to them?  (Shrug?)

Well, I’m going to have a field day this year with others’ emotions because I was asked to rep some relatively unknown cigars and I said, “Yes!”  

Plus, I’ve not a speck of anxiety with my choices.  I know most of the manufacturers and the brand owners by default simply by being in the business since 2005.  I mean really, keeping up with the plethora of brands being spewed out is realistically impossible.  But some do bob to the surface – and I have confidence that I plucked those out of the morass.

So instead of fear, I BELIEVE (hands in the air!) – I AFFIRM (dramatic pause) that I AM (another vivid pause) this year’s – FORECASTER OF FUN!