The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

Most start-up businesses on the notoriously bankrupt-prone South End fail within the first 6 months, victims of over optimistic entrepreneurs who grew tired of dead end careers and overbearing bosses.  They thought what they needed was a new start and a new boss.  Themselves.  Trouble was, the new boss was pretty much the same as the old boss.  Plus he didn’t pay as well.  If at all.

The South End Storage and Moving company was different.  Ralph Monroe had acquired properties from the Mountain/Dixon line to the Head back when land was cheap and he was looking for tax write-offs for his large profits on Raging Ralph’s Appliance Centers down in Smokey Point.  Ralph was one of those hucksters who appeared in his own TV ads as a fast talking Freddy, smoking hot deals, c’mon down, c’mon down, our prices can’t be beat, guaranteed!!, a slightly overweight balding carnival barker with a bad comb-over, apparently the keys to Success with a capital dollar sign.

A few years back small clusters of storage sheds began to pop up in cleared off acreage, one near the Diner, another down by the abandoned Tyee Store, a third nearly to the end of the island barely visible from the road.  Ralph didn’t advertise them, probably because they sat in residentially zoned land, not commercial, but Rome was a long haul away still over on Whidbey Island and the South End barely hit their radar.

For a time Ralph stored his overstock in the sheds, but back when Tyee Store was the economic center of the South End, he hit on the idea of hauling used appliances out beside the highway with For Sale signs on them.  Jenny Wainright, recently let go when the Bikini Barista expresso stand was forced out of Stanwoodopolis by the morally upright citizenry and its town council up there, kept an office by the sheds where Ralph hoped the surging sales of used stoves and refrigerators might keep her busy and him even more profitable.

I took a photo of the roadside super sale and made one of my South End posters for the WHITE TRASH WHITE SALE and hung it in the Tyee Store back in the days when the store didn’t take itself too seriously.  Ralph was having coffee at one of the tables with a couple of other caffeine addicts when he caught sight of his appliances over the ice cream coolers.  ‘What the??’ he sputtered to Don, the manager who let me hang these.  ‘What does it mean?’

Don allowed as how Skeeter was probably making fun of him.  ‘Kind of trashes up the highway, Ralph,’ Randy G. chimed in, which only set Ralph on a rant.  ‘We’ll see about this!’ he hollered, citing his constitutional rights to make a buck and asking just where the hell this Skeeter guy lived.  At least until Chris, our local sheriff’s deppity, quietly said, ‘Ya know, Ralph, some kid crawls into one of your frigidaires and suffocates, you’ll be liable, probably criminal offense on top of the lawsuits.  You might want to think about that.’

And so the appliances got wheeled in off the road, the storage sheds got slowly rented to the newcomers who needed someplace to park their boats and couches and antique cars and Jenny left for a part time expresso gig on the north end.  One that she could wear clothes for.  Even if the tips weren’t as good.  And life down here returned to normal.  Whatever that is….

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