Tony Ballone and the Towel Count

You need to know the floor plan at Capelli Ltd. Put simply it is a backwards letter “L”. A customer would enter the top right of the L and walk to the rear of the shop to where the hairstyling patrons would be served. On the way to the styling section of the shop, you would pass the regular haircutters. There were 5 big Emil J. Paidar chairs lined in a row with mirrored back bars and a shampoo sink at every station. In our area we were set in individual booths, with 2 chairs next to one another separated by a short six foot wall. That gave a feeling of privacy, when in fact everyone could see everyone else. At my booth which was at the far outside of the L was a hidden entrance for the plumber to access the pipes for seven of the eleven sinks. This secret entrance way was enhanced by the fact that it was part of my back bar. It doubled as my towel bin which was about 22”x 24”. I could neatly stack my small towels as well as the shampoo towels. Looking at these beautiful custom made dark Mediterranean cabinets. No one would suspect a hidden passage way. Not in an office building like the Merchandise Mart. Tony Ballone never new about it for sure.
It was s a boring day at work not many clients. When I opened my cabinet I noticed I was low on towels. Then the scheme hit me. I went to Sonny and shared my devious plan. With nothing more than looks to Dennis, Ron and Gwen the plan was afoot. With three built in mirrors, one forward and two slightly angled All could stay in eye contact with one another. Sonny asked Tony to count towels in the bins to make sure we did not run out before delivery on Friday. “………Because Friday is almost booked solid and same for Saturday. Make it easy on yourself Tony, start up front.” So while Tony went up front I quickly climbed into the cabinet and carefully arranged the towels messed up trying to fit into the tight space. As I waited quietly I could hear each door firmly close. He was at Sonny’s. Will Tony go across to Dennis or come to me next? I waited patiently……. Ah he went to Dennis’ station….Tony opened my door, I waited another two seconds he started counting 1,2, 3 his hand reach all the way down to see if any towels were blocking his count. Then I grabbed his wrist and tried pulling him into the cabinet and shouted,… arggghhha!!!! He jumped back and let out an even louder ….“aarrggghhha!!!!!!! You craazzyy sssommmommaoffabitch!! You omost gif me a eart attack.” The place went up for grabs. The looks on the customers faces were total disbelief and laughter. One client said he was glad to see that we all work very hard and put our dead time to some creative use. But please don’t ever book my appointment with him, he’s nuts. I smiled at the gentleman and said, Thank you. Well that incident was so much nicer than when I put kernels of popping corn in the protective wire in the barrel of his hair dryer. TT 10/23/01