(Dedicated to Phil and Mike)

I want a sort of paste or bottle, something kind of

For holes in my woodwork is what I had in mind of.

WE GOT IT!

Lady, holes in wood is tragic,

But we will fix you up like magic.

Harold, nineteen-cent size Chair-Loc

for this lady. What else?

Mosquitoes and flies and hornets, moths, and bugs

Come in at my window all over the walls and rugs.

WE GOT IT!

Lady, bugs and flies are awful.

You can hardly be too cawful.

About a hundred feet and a hawf'll

Give mosquitoes such a jawful

They will know it's quite unlawful.

Harold, Phil, Chuck, take this lady's

measurements for screens.

I don't suppose you have in stock a certain item

Or two I looked around for and couldn't sight 'em.

WE GOT IT!

Waterproof, washable, soluble, odorless paint?

WE GOT IT!

Beautiful wallpaper for where wallpaper aint?

WE GOT IT!

Harold, bring the booklet.

Harold, fetch the catalog.

Harold, show the lady

All sizes leashes for the dog,

All the stickiness of glues,

Diameters and threads of screws,

Colors of the pots and pans,

Capacities of garbage cans,

Cleaner for sinks.

Plugs for chinks.

Pucks for rinks.

Cups for drinks.

Small links, big links.

Tiddledy-winks.

That's not exactly the thing I thought it was.

I meant more this way, that way, as if because,

But more like the one the other man sold me,

Or maybe it was my neighbor's cousin told me,

And it has a part near the end so it catches,

And if I had my other coat on, it just matches.

I was thinking of the name just the other day.

I came in here thinking I could get it right away.

WE GOT IT!

It's green.

WE GOT IT!

Know just what you mean.

WE GOT IT!

That's using the old bean.

We also carry a full line

Of sponges, twine, kalsomine turpentine,

Pails,

Nails,

Flashlights,

Dashlights,

Door mats,

Wool bats,

Plant sticks,

Lamp wicks,

Rakes,

Moth flakes,

Rope,

Soap,

Stools,

Rules,

And-

Mike, I want a fifty-four-foot fluorescent tube,

And a hand-hammered size-eleven speckled groob,

Couple of those you-know, wide innocuosities,

And some sclop, a gallon, kind that don't freeze.

WE GOT IT!

Mike, up at my house, in the cellar I have a problem.

WE GOT IT!

Mike, how about spare parts for my Sherman tank?

Mike, will you put some cash from your bank in my bank?

Phil, the Voice of America needs all new wiring.

Phil, the Queen Mary's gyroscope is all out of gyring.

WE GOT IT!

Mike, the bell on my bike -

WE GOT IT!

Phil, the pawl on my drill -

WE GOT IT!

Where in the hell is that ten thousand tons

I phoned for this morning to be delivered at once?

And the solid gold Venetian blinds on approval,

And the snow so the city can pay men for snow removal?

Didn't I order you to wire my dreams for sound?

I want my house and my uncle's house and my son's house

Papered from top to bottom by tomorrow night, you louse,

The two of you, and don't just be standing around.

WELL, SAY!

IT'S ON THE WAY.

WE GOT IT!

ON THE DOUBLE!

IT WAS NO TROUBLE.

WE GOT IT!

Please, mister, I'm building a boat out of a shingle with a

sail like it said on the Wheaties box, yeah, and it

has a mast, sort of like a stick sticking up, and

I built it, well, my brother helped me a little, and

it won't stand up, because I need a tack -

WE CAN ORDER IT FOR YOU.

Let me have two hundred-pound bags of Vigoro.

IT'S OVER AT THE GARAGE.

Got light bulbs? Got toasters? Got any brushes?

I'LL TRY THE OTHER STORE.

Phil and Mike, Mike and Phil,

They have a store upon a hill,

And in that store they have a mill-ion kinds of very useful things,

And Mike he sings, and Phil he sings,

As what I want he goes and brings-

WE GOT IT!

WE GOT IT!

WE GOT IT!

Who's got goods from spade to spike?

MIKE.

Whose ingenuity is never nil?

PHIL.

Whose patience can't the customers kill?

PHIL.

Who does almost everyone like?

MIKE.

What's that you said? Whaddya mean, almost everyone? Where do

yuh get this almost stuff?

Well, one day I came into the store and he wasn't there,

and when I come into the store I want to see him

in the store, see? Every time.

Yeah, I see what you mean. Phil, too. I remember one time

couple of years ago I come into the store, Phil

wasn't there. Didn't seem right. Seemed empty.

Didn't seem right, Phil not being there. Quiet.

Yeah, same with Mike, same thing. He ought to be there all

the time, not just six days a week. Phil comes

in nights and Sundays, sometimes, but it ain't

regular. You can't depend on it.

Suppose I want to do some plumbing around midnight, or I'm

papering the wall and I run out of paper, sort of.

Mike should be there, to bring it up.

Or Phil. They both ought to be there, both of them, so if

I run out of putty or something, weather-stripping

or something like that, right at the same time you

run out of plumbing, and Mike is delivering to your

house, Phil can deliver to my house.

Twenty-four hour service, Phil and Mike both, that's what

I say. None of this sixty-hour week stuff. Why, they

got me so I depend on 'em. Light-fixtures. Extension-

cords. Carving-knives. Paint-remover. Step-ladders.

THEY GOT IT!

Metal-polish. Tennis-balls. Window-glass . Floor-sanders.

THEY GOT IT!

Alarm-clocks Switch-plates. Magazines. Cigars. Liver pills.

THEY - hey, wait a minute!.

Well, they'll get it for you. Grass-seed. Hack-saws. Sash-cord.

THEY GOT IT!

Service. Jokes. Genius. Memory. Stock. Bills.

THEY - hey, wait a minute! What was that last

thing you said? Just as I was struck with

amazement at the brilliance and profound truth

with which you summed up the whole secret

of the hardware business in general, and the

Hillside Hardware Store in particular, there was one very strange word in there -

Service. That's everyone in the store, all those hand-picked

geniuses trained by Mike and Phil, knowing where, why,

and how much, and working fast.

Jokes. That's the sense of humor, the pleasant manners, with now

and then some funny stories and cracks. .

Genius. That's strictly hardware men. Only geniuses go into

the hardware business. Nothing short of a genius could know

all they know, and keep on learning more.

Memory. That's remembering where everything is, and the sizes,

the purposes, the prices, the methods and results of

use. It's part of a hardware man's genius that he is

born with a card-catalog brain, always up-dated.

Stock. That's what's in the store now, what's been ordered, and

how and why it's been ordered, and for whom. The stock is

the store, the business is the stock.

THEY - hey, wait a minute! What about customers?

You dope, can't you spell., you dope? You take those letters of

the words I just said, S for service, J for jokes, G

for genius, M for memory, another S for stock, and B

for bills, and what do they spell?

CUSTOMERS!

Right!. So now what do we say about that?

THEY GOT IT!.

Right! Customers is what it spells, and customers is what they got.

THEY - hey, wait a minute! That word.

That word "bills." What is that?

Oh, that. Why, that's Joe. Josephine, if you want to be informal.

She's the lovely lady who sits at the desk up back, and writes down everything you say.

You mean that beautiful damsel with the beautiful smile? You

mean she writes everything down? What do I say that she would want to write down?

Floor-wax, door-hinges, garden-shears, dust-pans, bench-tools -

THEY GOT IT!

No, no. I mean, yes, yes. Sure they got it, and if you say it,

she writes it down. She likes to hear people say things

like that. The more the better. The more things you

say, the bigger the bill.

YOU MEAN I GOT TO PAY EVERY

TIME I OPEN MY BIG MOUTH?

Oh, sure. Joe's a genius, too, only she's more so, because she

has all these other geniuses working for her, telling

her how much to put on your bill.

WHAT'S THAT? WHAT BILL?

That little white slip of paper comes every first of the month.

Love-letter from Joe, thirty-eight ninety, or eleven

fifty, or seventy-two ten, and you write out a check

for that amount and send it right back, with love.

HOW DID YOU KNOW?

How did I know what?

About me. About me always writing out on my

checks, Pay to the order of the Hillside

Hardware Co. sixty two and no lOOths with love.

Oh, that's nothing. Why, everyone does that. They like Mike,

they like Phil, they like Joe and all the other geniuses,

and they like the stock which they try so hard to

clear off the shelves and which Mike and Phil load

right up again, and they like the bills.

Well, I like them, too. I guess I just

didn't know that was the word for them.

I think of them as happy little reminders

of all the pleasure I had buying and

using the stuff.

Well, that's dandy. That's the way it is in the hardware business.

Speaking of business, here comes some more customers.

Mike have you got any round but sort of square

Made of brass or plastic like I remember somewhere

To fit into but partly up above on the outside

I think it was eighty-five cents about this wide

WE GOT IT!

Pounda putty. Quarta paint. Yarda wire. Bottla oil.

Rolla paper. Sheeta glass. Balla string. Hunka foil.

WE GOT IT!

Everything for the kitchen sink, everything for the stove,

Everything for the bathroom, everything for the hall,

Everything for the work-bench, everything for the house,

Everything for the window, door, floor, ceiling wall.

WE GOT IT!

They got it! They got it!

WE GOT IT!

They got it'. We bought it'.

THEY BOUGHT IT!

WE GOT IT!

THEY BOUGHT IT