A Couple of Humorous Stories By Gary Davis
Busting Chops
What is more important than morals in business networking is to have a good “appropriateness compass” or ethic. A moral compass makes you a good member of your church, ashram, mosque, or synagogue, but not a good person to have in my network. Being good is not the object, being appropriate is. So what is the difference between good and being appropriate? Have you ever heard the term “bustin’ chops?” I had never heard of such a thing until I met Terrance. Terrance DiFranco was the best. This kid moved down to Chapel Hill from South Philly, and was your typical Rocky character, both in look and attitude. He was one of my best friends, and I loved this guy the way guys that love girls love other guys. But not all the good old boys at UNC loved or even liked Terrance. The reason was simple. Terrance would bust your chops. “Get a free steak with that haircut?” He thought it was fun to make fun of the other guys we hung around. “Thrift store have a going out of business sale?” Is this what they did in his old neighborhood in South Philly? “That your new girl friend or a Bigfoot?” We did not do that to our buddies in Southern Wake County. In some cultures, giving your buddies a “hard time” about anything and everything was a common method of showing affection, like the eight year old boy that hit the girl he likes the most. But instead it was big lugs taking their best shot at humiliating and degrading one another with their best jabs, being treated a chorus of “oooo” and “aww man, that is bad” Is this wrong? It is possible that one could say that it is not right to treat others so discourteously. But in his world to the north, it is appropriate.
Got Warts
When I was 16 years old, a man talked a wart off of my hand. It was a miracle. I had been dealing with this wart for over a year. Three times I had been to a dermatologist to have it frozen but it continued to come back. A friend of mine heard me talking about it at a football game and told me her father could “talk it off”. Now if you have heard of it, I am her to tell you, it works. I went to their house and he took me out into the yard. He put a penny on the wart and then another on the other side of my hand. He then rubbed the pennies and started talking. Weird. “Come on off of there wart, come on wart. You will be mine wart, come on, come on.” I was now rolling my eyes. Even at 16, I knew that this foolery could never work. “Come on wart, come on offa there, you’ll be mine, you’ll be mine” Suddenly, he pulled the two pennies off and blew on them. Then he handed them to me. “Throw them in the woods, its done.” I threw the pennies in the woods. He said it would be gone soon. As I rode home I could not help thinking how stupid I was, while at the same time hoping I was wrong. I was. Inside of a month the wart had completely disappeared. I told my wife recently about my miracle healing. She may be like you, because she said that if it was anyone else, she would not believe it.