An Icemelt Story

The salesman never entered our office.
He stood in the corridor with our front door partially opened and asked our office manager
"Do you want to order the same amount of Icemelt you did last year?"


Surprised, she looked up and asked "Who are you?"


"I'm taking orders for Icemelt. This building always orders 800 pounds."
"You'll have to ask Dan" she said "He's our new Chief Engineer."


"Dan!" she called around the corner in the direction of my office,
"There's a guy here selling Icemelt."


I walked out to the reception area, the salesman never budged front our front door.
It was a few weeks after the closing ceremonies of the 1996 Olympic Games, early September.


"I haven't had a chance to check our inventory, I don't know how much we need."


"800 pounds."
"Excuse me?"
"800 pounds. This building always orders 800 pounds."
"I haven't had a chance to check our inventory. If you'll give me a few minutes I can let you know."
"If you had called before you dropped by" I continued, "I would have checked our inventory."


"I don't have time to wait," he insisted "This building ALWAYS orders 800 pounds."
"I'm placing the order today. He continued,
"You may want to order 1200 pounds. I hear it's going too be a BAD Winter!"


"It will only take me a few minutes to go and check..."


"No, I can't wait. If you don't get any you'll be sorry!"


"I'll bet we have some in inventory, we had a very mild Winter this year. I'll order 400 pounds."


"Your going to need more, probably 1200 pounds. It's going to be a BAD Winter."


"Put me down for 400 pounds, I'll get more later if I need it."


"I just order Icemelt once a year, there won't be any later."


"I may have a lot left over. We'll take 400 pounds!"


"All right, I hope you don't regret it..."


A few weeks later the 400 pounds of Icemelt arrived.
One of my engineers called me on the radio.
"Dan, Where do you want me to put the Icemelt?"


"Put it in the store room with the snow and ice equipment."


"It won't fit!"


"What do you mean it won't fit?"


"There's no more room in the store room. We 'll have to take some stuff out."


I went down to the store room to check out the situation.
Jammed into every nook and cranny of the store room
was over 2000 pounds of Icemelt!


14 years later, as all of North Georgia has completely run out of Icemelt,
I'll bet there are still over 1000 pounds at the Peachtree Summit Building!