The Ice Scrapers
You’re on the air on the hometown radio station at 9pm. You get off at midnight. It’s raining ice and you don’t have an icescraper. What would you do? I thought that in a couple of hours I’d have an impossible situation on my hands. I was afraid I’d not be able to see through the windshield. I simply went on the air and asked if anyone had a spare icescraper. If anyone had one they should come to the radio station right now. "To make it worth your while, I’ll give you the new Journey album." (We had a giant box of them in the hall.) I went to the door after the announcement expecting to see a car drive up. Seconds later one did. I grabbed an album, went outside, they gave me a scraper, I ran back inside thinking I’d just go back on the air in minutes and say thanks. It wasn’t gonna be that easy. Before I could make it to the stairs, I saw more headlights. It was another car. I grabbed another album. Then I saw more lights, I grabbed another album. I ran outside and was met by those cars and three more. I exchanged the albums for scrapers, grabbed more albums and got more scrapers. More headlights. More, then more, then more, then more, then more, then more came. There were 50 albums in the box that night, and at midnight I had 50 icescrapers. In about 15 minutes, I had a lifetime supply of icescrapers, and about two and a half hours to concoct a story to tell my boss about what happened to the box of Journey albums. I don’t recall getting into hot water over this - he must have understood - maybe he heard the bit - but that night I discovered the power of what I’d chosen to do for a living.
