Birthday Fishing

What kind of a customer are you?

I try to take a fishing trip around my birthday time, each year. Been going on a half-dozen years or more, and it’s a tradition I like. Been good some years, less successful other years.

After Thanksgiving, I was fishing. Coastal and Western, and literally, at one point, the City of Corpus Christi was visible, as a backdrop. Bay Fishing at its Finest!

After the last trip, this was a Mercury is Retrograde kind of trip, the catch was a little bit of a let down. I wound up with a cooler full of Orange/Mangrove snapper, and little else. No great picture, although, there is one of me clowning with birds on a wire at the old Fina dock. A good time was had by all. To be expected, it’s the way I roll.

I really shouldn’t try to be too ghetto, doesn’t work.

I was pulling in a handful of smaller “sandies,” a sand trout, at one place that was particularly plentiful, one time, and not so much. Three or four lines in the water, and one pole begins to jiggle. My phone rings. I answer, it’s a good customer. The tip of the pole jiggles some more. My buddy, pole in his hand as he reels one in, unhooks another small sandy, and he nods, at the pole that’s moving. A little. I wave him off. I smile at him, at least, I hope I smiled at him, and I turn my attention to what’s on the phone.

Good customers, I like good customers, and I treat them well, I hope.

My buddy on the phone needed a quick astrological question answered. I passed up a fish to answer a client in need. Good customer. I’ll do that. If it was a big fish, I’d say so, and tell them to call back in an hour.

It’s about priorities. Then, too, this is a good customer, as in kind, pays regular, and that one? Doesn’t demand my time. I’ll also work in time for a quick call like that. Good customers are hard to find, and I treat them like gold. Probably lost a big fish because of that.

Does it matter?

Yes. I want more customers like that. Just like that.

The old analogy was, “It’s three AM in the morning, and you’re drunk, in jail, who can you call?

My good customers? I’ll answer the call. The good ones. Or e-mail.