Funny story – Guys do some crazy things. 26 years ago, me and my two closest buds started our own hotel brokerage company called Thompson-Calhoun-Fair. One day we got this shipment of office supplies and as we opened the box, we saw that the shipper had used these big rubber bands to hold the materials in place. Now when I say big rubber band, what I mean is they looked like a fan belt for a Mazda car.
The rubber bands could take the paint off a door if you aimed it straight on.
Well,,,,,, guys being guys, one day my partner was coming into the conference room and bent over to get something out of the drawer and I got one of those rubber bands and pulled it back and shot him in in the haunches and it slapped him so hard he squealed like a nine year old girl. I laughed so hard I just about hurt myself. Well, you guessed it, before long all three of us were walking around the office holding these Mazda fan belts and we started shooting each other.
Of course, guys being guys, we had to set some ground rules, and the holy grail ground rule was that if you accidentally shoot someone in the neck or face, you’d have to stand in the penalty box and let the other two partners take a free shot.
Needless to say, we all spent some time in the penalty box. So, a week or so later I went home and was changing clothes and took my shirt off and looked at myself in the mirror and I had welts, scratches, and sores all over my chest and back. It looked like I had been in fight with three tigers. I mean I was beat up. After a while, it got so bad I’d have to change clothes in the closet. Ha
One time the three of us were in Washington meeting with very important client. We were setting up the Power Point presentation in the conference room before the client’s team came in. My partner Mark was leaning over the conference room table hooking up the projector and me and the other partner Al, were standing behind Mark as he reached over the table. You guessed it, we both took out the rubber bands and hit him so hard in the rump his eyes watered. The three of us looked like the Three Stooges laughing when all the clients walked into the conference room. It took us a good 60 seconds to stop laughing. The clients thought, what a bunch of goobers, but then they started laughing at us laughing and wouldn’t you know it, the client loved us and hired us. ha
We’ll all good things come to an end so a few weeks later we decided we would do better selling hotels than engaging in rubber band battles and only brought out the shooters on special occasion like when one of really did something stupid.
Elaine and I just moved to the lake back in June and as I was unpacking, I found one of those big rubber bands in one of the drawers. I had to laugh a little at the craziness all those years ago but as I thought about, there was an unintended bond that developed between us three partners that was special and lasted a lot of years until we sold the company.
Memories are powerful and can transport you right back to a specific time in your life and like the rubber band story, it was great to remember good times with good friends. K