Old, Old MacDonald

Being situated as we are, in the exact middle of no-where, my co-workers and I often deal with people who wish to find some business or another but fear themselves doomed to wander. A few minutes ago a farmer walked in. He looks as though he probably witnessed God creating the earth and complained about it.

Upon entering he immediately explained his situation to the receptionist, who was on the phone at the time. He was looking for a place the re-finishes furniture. He knew it was on 20... somewhere.

Let me tell you folks, 20 is a long road. Somewhere encompasses a great deal of space. And there are a lot of Amish people in the furniture business. A co-worker rose to the challenge of figuring out where the farmer was going (the receptionist having persisted in her phone call).

She asked him if he knew the name of company.
"Well, no I don’t," our farmer answered. He sounded more as if he were berrating Esther for not having told him the name, rather than admitting short sightedness on his part.
He told us that the building was large and Esther suggested that perhaps it was the Amish man down the road that he was looking for.

"Is the building large?" asked the Farmer in a tone that indicated his belief that Esther would lead him straight to the devil if he was not vigilant. Well, Amish houses are large.
I suggested the business in question might be further on down the road. Much further.
"I don’t remember it bein’ that fer," he admonished me. It occurred to me that the business might have moved some time in the last hundred years, but since he was being so testy I didn’t feel obliged to drop this advice.

Eventually it was decided that whether the Amish man with the large house was the furniture re-finsiher the farmer was seeking or not he woud certainly know where to find the correct one. If you listen closely you can probably, even now, hear the faint echo of the farmer’s distain for any Amish furniture maker who cannot tell a farmer what the farmer wants.