No Stinkin’ Strawberries

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In my last post, Have You Heard The One About...  I said I would modify a story as an example.

Here is the original as best I remember it:

A man goes to the produce section of a grocery stoe and asks the clerk where the strawberries are located.

“I’m sorry sir, Strawberries are out of season.”

The man looks around, and asks again, “Are you sure there aren’t any strawberries? Maybe in the back? Leftover?”

“No sir. We have no strawberries. We haven’t had strawberries for awhile, They are out of season.”

The man wanders around the store for a few minutes. He really wanted some strawberries and decided to try one more time. He saw a clerk leaning over a counter and thought maybe this one might know something the other clerk didn’t. “Excuse me. Where are the strawberries?”

When the clerk stood up, the man realized it was the same one as before. The clerk turned, recognized the man, and through a tight lipped smile said, “Let me ask you a question OK? If you take the “el” out of bagel. What do you have?”

The man thought a moment and replied “Bag.”

“Exactly. Now if you take the “band” out of bandage, what have you got?”

“Age!”

“Correct again. Now if you take the “f***” out of strawberries, what have you got?”

The man thought a moment and said “There’s no “f***” in strawberries.”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you! There’s no f***ing strawberries.”

OK. the first change was to replace f*** with “stink.” Now the story is G rated.

Then I could use it as an illustration perhpas of how we can be blinded by our desire and deny reality. Or how we sometimes listen, but we don’t hear. Or as an example of how to handle a customer service situation. It could even be a an example of embarrassing a customer – or, what not to do.

I could, and many times did, tell it as if I was the man looking for strawberries, because the safest target is always yourself. I usually added emotion and sense rich descriptions, about strawberry shortcake, whipped cream, etc. I would sometimes talk about frozen strawberries and how they just weren’t the same.

If the audience was a grocer, or any sort of retail. I could make the clerk one of the principles in the company, or a manager everyone knew. Or, I could make myself the clerk and one of the audience as the customer, a manager or the CEO perhaps.

If the audience sold Toyotas, the customer could be looking for a Nissan. If they sold hamburgers he could ask for a taco. The clerk could be a weatherman being asked when it was going to rain.

The best stories lend themselves to multiple interpretations.

A variation on this story, concerns a duck going to a feed store to ask for “duck feed,” after the third visit the clerk threatens to nail the duck’s feet to the floor if he comes in and asks for “duck feed” again. The fourth time the duck first asks if the feed store has any nails. When the clerk replies “No,” the duck asks for … “duck feed” again.

And I might finish off this entire segment with the story about a retail general manager who left to become a police officer… because “the customer is always wrong!”

If you need help modifying your stories for your audience, contact me.

If you have a favorite story to share, please do so in comments. Your thoughts and suggestions are always welcome.

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