The Big Award
by
Fred Narvey
We arrived back from our holiday in Palm Springs, California, and found that a few things in our home were not quite in order. The wallpaper in the bathroom was "bubbling", the linoleum in the kitchen was lifting, and the "zapper" (remote control device) for activating the overhead garage door wasn't working properly. As I explained to you before, I am so talented that if I tried to fix any of these things I would only make it worse. It's not for nothing that my mother used to call me "Geroy Meiner", which is a combination of Ukrainian and Yiddish meaning "My Hero".Well, in a case like that there is only one thing to do and that is to speak to our good neighbor, Hymie. You remember Hymie, he's the man with the "golden hands."
So I walked over to Hymie's and gave him a big "Hello!"
"He's depressed again," his wife whispered.
"I'm sorry to hear that, Bella," I said. "How was your winter?"
"Everything was all right," she replied, "except for that incident."
"I told you a hundred times not to call it an incident!" Hymie shouted.
"All right, all right already," Bella said, "except for that 'happening'; you like that better?"
Hymie scowled at her, then looked at me. "What's on your mind, neighbor?" he asked.
"I'll come back later when you are feeling better, Hymie," I replied. "I just wanted you to take a look at my zapper."
"You're here already, so sit down," Hymie said. "I want to show you something." Hymie took a sheet of paper out of a drawer and handed it to me. It was a beige coloured document with a fancy pink border all around it like a wedding certificate. The heading of the document stated:
OFFICIAL CLAIM CERTIFICATE FOR
HYMIE GALSKY
GREAT NEWS
YOU ARE ABSOLUTELY GUARANTEED AT LEAST ONE (1) or more of the following five awards:
1)FORD EXPLORER
2)AIRFARE FOR TWO IN BREATHTAKING HAWAII FOR 14 DAYS AND 13 NIGHTS
3)GENUINE 1 KT. DIAMOND & SAPPHIRE PENDANT
4)STATE OF THE ART PORTABLE CELLULAR PHONE
5)A COMPLETE FUJITSU 10 FOOT SATELLITE DISH SYSTEM
DON'T WAIT - PHONE NOW!
THE GLOBAL DISTRIBUTING COMPANYThe certificate even included a personal code number and bonus number.
"Mazel Tov, Hymie!" I said. "What did you do to qualify for these awards?"
"That's the point," Hymie replied. "I didn't do anything. Naturally I was suspicious, but I admit that I was curious, so I decided to invest in a phone call to Montreal."
"The lady that answered the phone was very friendly. She congratulated me for having been picked to receive the awards and so on and so forth, and ended by saying that I should mail them a cheque for $1800 for handling and shipping the awards. You hear that, neighbor?" Hymie asked. "I hear, I hear," I said. "So what happened?"
Hymie took a deep breath and continued. "I thought I'd be smart, so I said, 'I don't want so many awards, just send me the Ford car."
"In that case", she replied, "just mail us a cheque for $1,000." I told her I would think about it and hung up. To tell you the truth, neighbor, I figured $1000 for a Ford car is not bad, but I was still suspicious, so I said to Bella, "I think I'll phone a lawyer and get some advice."
"Why should you phone a lawyer?" Bella asked. "That will cost you money; lawyers don't come cheap. I suggest that you should phone my nephew, Seymour, the law student. He will give you the same advice and it won't cost you."
"What you don't do for a wife! So I phoned Seymour, the law student, and told him the whole story with all the details. Seymour thought it over for a few moments and then said, 'Uncle Hymie, my advice to you is the following. Mail a cheque to the Global Distributing Company for $1000 and mark it For Delivery of the Ford Car, but forget to sign the cheque.'
"What good will that do?"
"You'll see. Trust me, Uncle Hymie."
"Who am I to argue with a law student, especially when he is my wife's nephew? So I took Seymour's advice and mailed the cheque for $1000 and 'forgot' to sign it."
"I waited for a month and I didn't hear a word from Montreal. Then I received my monthly statement from the bank. Sure enough! Someone forged my name and cashed the cheque! So I phoned Bella's nephew and said, 'What do I do now, wise guy?' Do you think he said he was sorry or something like that? No, instead he said he expected that to happen."
"My dear Uncle Hymie," he said, "phone the Global Distributing Company and tell them that unless they deliver the Ford car immediately, you will sue them for fraud. Forging a cheque is a criminal offence." That sounded good to me so I did what Seymour advised.
"I received a phone call, one frosty morning a week later. It was a man's voice. 'Are you Mr. Hymie Galsky?' 'Yes.' 'If you will look through your front window, you will see a Ford car. It's yours. The keys are behind the sun visor. Goodbye.' And he hung up. I looked out the window. There was a shiny, brand new Ford car! I was so excited and so anxious to get behind the wheel that I didn't bother to put my coat on - and this was in the middle of winter. The keys were behind the sun visor like the man said, so I started up the motor and it sounded like a sewing machine - beautiful! I'll just run it around the block, I thought. Just then, Bella stuck her head out of the door and screamed, 'Hymie, come back and put your coat on, you'll catch a cold!' I left the motor running and ran back to the house. I grabbed my coat and kissed Bella on both cheeks. I told her I was sorry for all the unkind things I said about her nephew, the wise guy."
"Just as I was about to run back to the car - crash! It sounded like a bomb had gone off. All I could see was fire and smoke where the car had been. We had to call the fire department to put out the fire."
Hymie sat down, exhausted just from telling the story. "And my wife calls that an incident. What do you think of that, neighbor?"
"I think that's terrible, Hymie. Did you call the police?"
"Did I call the police! They were here together with the firemen. They found the serial number when the car cooled down and phoned me the very next day to say that the Ford was a stolen vehicle. The police in Montreal are still looking for the operators of the Global Distributing Company. It turns out that the lady with the friendly voice and her friends left town owing a lot of money to the landlord, the telephone company, etc."
I was sitting there stunned, shaking my head and making stupid little tsk, tsk sounds. Hymie regained his composure and pointing to my zapper asked, "What's with that thing, neighbor?"
I explained to Hymie that when I pressed the zapper for the overhead garage door to come down, it hit bottom and then went right up again, as though it had a mind of its own.
"So press the zapper again when the door hits bottom!" Hymie shouted, "And the door will stay down, you idiot!"
You know what? He was right.
(Dear Reader - You will be interested to know that Seymour quit law school and is now studying medicine.)