Fueling the Fun

Jan 6, 2009 11:35 AM

I did my best not to act too incredulous at his inquiry. This occurred in downtown Des Moines, after all. This wasn’t at a cocktail party in Connecticut. Yes, I told him, I’m an actual farmer. I do the work myself and sometimes I get dirty doing it. I even own the livestock I raise. It’s not a contract deal. That shocked him to no end. An honest-to-God Iowa farmer, right there in front of him. How quaint. He wanted to come out and see it for himself sometime. I told him to show up anytime and I’d give him the full tour, maybe even letting him play with some toys himself.

Back to Mom’s question. I told her that I do, in fact, farm. Then she had a follow-up.

“Do you sell corn?”

The capitalist in me sort of liked that question’s framing. Raise it? Well, yes, but Mom wasn’t so much into the raising part. She was into the ka-ching part of the equation. I believe it was the great philosopher, Dot Com Guy, my Internet executive friend, who said, “God, I love the smell of capitalism in the morning!”

Yeah, I sell it.

“I mean, would you sell it to the general public? We just bought a corn-burning furnace for our house and we need to find a place to get the corn. Would you sell us some of your corn?”

Speaking of great philosophers, this would have been a great spot to insert either of two quotes from one of the all-time greats — Kramer. We could have gone with the always-popular, “YeeeeeeaaaAAAHHH!” and then spun around and danced a jig, or my personal favorite, “Retail is for suckers!”

The coconut cream was going to make the first one hard to execute properly and politely. The second one . . . Well, these were potential customers here, so why go high-brow on them? I went with a more understated option.

Yep, no problem.

“You WOULD? REALLY???”

Sure. I’d probably even deliver it.

Well, it may as well have been Christmas morning for Mom about then. She was downright giddy. Dad, of course, had a bit more testosterone and needed to see if it was still flowing, so he flexed his negotiation muscles.

“What moisture level do you dry your corn to? Fifteen? Twenty?” Dad inquired.

Whoa. Dad’s apparently an accountant, an engineer or an actuary.

I told him we usually go to 13%, maybe 12.5%. Had I been thinking, I would have tested his background a bit more and told him we set the computerized drying system to dry it to a 13.7% level and then take the remaining 1.2% off with aeration to keep the drying costs low. That might tell me if he’s a banker.

Dad was okay with my answer, so there was no need to make this a playground game and see whose muscles were bigger.

We wished each other well as they headed out. Mom mentioned that they now have my card, so they will be in touch as soon as it’s time to stoke the furnace. I polished off the rest of my coconut cream and headed for the door.

On my way out, I noticed that Dad was on his bike, ready to go, but he was alone. I walked around the corner, down the street, and hopped into the buggy. As I pulled up to the stop sign to leave the downtown metroplex, I waved at Dad across the street. He was still waiting patiently in the launch position. Dad looked shocked when he realized it was me behind the wheel.

Yeah, I actually farm. That’s my answer and I’m sticking to it.

Guy No. 2