The Dildo Story

1971

A true story

Written in 2012* 1,903 Words

By Howard Yasgar

This true story happened in 1971, and to this day I don’t know if the situation that transpired should be considered funny or not.

I know that at the time that all of this happened, I felt bad about it, and I wished that none of it had ever happened.

Over the years, I have scratched my head many times, wondering if I could, or should have done anything differently.

In 1971, my company, Automotive Parts Industries, was in Miami, Florida.

At the time, Miami was the hub for exporting automotive parts to most all the South and Central American countries, as well as the Caribbean islands.

Because of our location in Miami, we had foreign parts buyers coming in to see us just about every day, and they not only bought our automotive parts, but they would buy pretty much any surplus items that we had so long as the price was right.

So, it soon became obvious to us that we needed a lot more cheap items for importers and exporters to buy.

Consequently, I was always looking for anything that I could buy anywhere at a low price

So, for us to fill this need, we started doing business with several automotive surplus dealers that were in the Detroit and Chicago area.

We had found that those two cities seemed to be the hub where we could find quantities of new surplus items at low prices.

The dealers that we bought from in Chicago and Detroit were able to buy discontinued items from many local automotive manufacturers, they also bought items from companies that were going bankrupt.

We found surplus dealers that bought all kinds of excess things, they even bought items like motor bikes and pin ball machines, which in turn we bought from them and shipped to our warehouse in Miami.

My partner Don and I would travel to Chicago and Detroit every few weeks on buying

trips, and after a while, we ended up zeroing in on a few good surplus dealers that got in the types of merchandise that we could buy at reasonable prices.

In Detroit, we started doing business Barney Kaplan of “Barney Kaplan Surplus”

Some days, Barney would call us in Miami and tell us about a deal that was to be available in Detroit. We trusted Barney and we would send him money in advance.

In Chicago we started doing business with two surplus dealers, both of which were located on Canal Street.

One of them was a company called Fleet Supply, a business owned by Bob Keen and his partner George Lustig. They specialize in heavy duty parts for trucks.

Located right down the Street from Fleet Supply, was another surplus company called “Automotive Surplus”, and it was owned by an entrepreneur named Abe Greenstein.

When we met Abe, we found him to be a very friendly fellow. He was a short guy about 50 years old, 5 foot 4 inches tall, and he wore a toupee.

Then to make matters even worse, Abe wore stilted shoes and he always wore loud plaid pants.

My partner and I always joked that Abe had what was called a “Napoleonic Complex”.

Whenever we went out for supper with Abe, he would always complain to the waiter about everything. Abe would order a drink called a “Rob Roy”, but he always sent it back, because it was either too hot or too cold.

Abe also would always order a butterflied steak, which he also always sent back to the kitchen for one reason or another.

It was obvious to us that because of Abe’s diminutive size and unusual appearance, and the fact that he had too much money, he had developed a Napoleonic complex, and then he had fine-tuned it, thus it was always embarrassing to be with him in a restaurant.

In business, Abe specialized in several things. He bought lots of rejected parts from auto manufacturers. Abe bought rejected parts by the pound for little or nothing and then sorted through them for useable items.

So, when we first met Abe, he had lots of boxes filled with all sorts of things like radiator hoses, and fan belts, and there were also pallet boxes with thousands of assorted automotive parts, it was all the kind of stuff our export customers wanted.

We paid Abe .50 cents apiece for radiator hoses and fan belts. Then we shipped them to Miami and sold them for $1.00 ea.

Over the next few years, we did a lot of business with Abe Greenstein, we were selling his stuff as fast as Abe could ship it to us.

One day in early 1980, Abe told me that he had developed a partnership with a fellow in the Philippines.

He said he did it because his partner could sell stuff in the Philippines and then pay Abe for it in cash, eliminating U.S. income tax.

So, every few months Abe would fly to the Philippines, he explained it all to me in

the greatest detail.

Abe said that, in the Philippines he found plenty of girls that liked him.

I knew that Abe had no real social life in Chicago, he wasn’t what you would call a lady’s man, he was short and balding and he looked and dressed strange.

Also, because Abe was a constant complainer, whenever a women went out with him, they would never go out with him a second time.

So, I thought it was a good thing that Abe had something nice going on with the girls in the Philippines.

Abe and I became such good friends that he started coming and staying with me in my home in Miami.

Abe confided in me that it wasn’t all business he was doing in the Philippines. He said that in Manilla all the women treated him nice and he said that he had a lot of girlfriends there.

Abe said that the women in Manilla didn’t make fun of him like the women in Chicago, Abe said because of this he was now a changed man.

Then, one day when I went to his office in Chicago, there was a young Pilipino girl sitting at the front secretary’s desk.

Abe said he wanted me to meet his new secretary, her name was Myrna.

Myrna who was obviously from the Philippines, looked to be about 20 years old.

She spoke very a little English, so I just watched her, as she sat at her desk moving junk mail from one pile to another.

Abe explained that Myrna was the daughter of his partner in Manilla and was now going to be his new secretary in Chicago.

When we left Abe’s office we were laughing, Myrna hardly spoke English, how could she be his secretary.

It wasn’t long before we received a card in the mail announcing that there was soon

going to be a stag party for Abe and it also was an invitation to the pending wedding of Abe Greenstein and his pretty Philippine fiancé Myrna.

Every day, as I spoke to other people that knew Abe, we discussed what we could do to organize Abe’s stag party.

The timing set for the stag party was bad for us and neither my partner nor I knew if we could attend, but either way, we knew we needed to get Abe something humorous for his party.

We pondered the question of what kind of gift to get Abe.

Abe was already a multi-millionaire and had pretty much everything, so we couldn’t come up with any good ideas.

Then one afternoon, my partner and I were in South Miami for a meeting with our attorney.

As we left his office, we stopped in a strip mall to get a sandwich, and as we left the sandwich shop, there was a novelty store next door, so we both went in to see what they had.

We were astounded, they had all kinds of stuff, and in the back of the store they had a display of all kinds of sexual aids.

As we looked, we both thought that most of the stuff was funny, especially the big dildo’s that were made of multicolored silicone rubber.

Some of them were over a foot long and over three inches thick.

Both my partner and I had the same idea at the same time. We should get one of the

outrageously big dildo’s, for Abe’s stag party.

It would be more humorous than anything else we could think of.

The store also sold boxes of hardon pills, so we bought a box of them for Abe also.

The next day we sent the stuff by U.P.S., to Abe’s attention. We sent it with a note

saying that it was for display at his stag party, we were sorry we couldn’t attend.

Well, two days later my phone rang, and it was Abe.

He said, “That was an awful thing you did”.

I had no idea what Abe was talking about, so I asked, “What are you talking about Abe?

He said, “You know what I am talking about”. But I was dumbfounded, I had no idea what he was talking about.

Abe’s voice became very serious, so again I asked him what he was talking about.

Abe said, “It was that awful thing you sent me”.

It was then I realized he was referring to the silicone rubber dildo.

At this point, I thought for sure that Abe was just joking around with me.

But he was very serious, and he said, “You both were just lucky that my Myrna didn’t see it”.

Well, at least now, I knew what Abe was talking about, but I couldn’t believe that he would call me to complain about it, I was a close friend.

I admit the entire conversation took me by surprise, and now I was sure Abe was joking. I said, Abe, we got the dildo as a joke for your stag party, if you don’t like it, just throw it in the waste basket.

I waited for an answer but then there was only silence.

I couldn’t believe anyone would make such a big fuss out of something that was done as a joke, and in good humor, after all we were good friends with Abe, and we were also good customers, doing over a million dollars a year in business with him.

Again, Abe spoke with a very serious voice, he said, “I can’t believe you would do a thing like this to me.

But now I was getting a bit miffed myself, I wondered how Abe could keep up the tirade over something so trivial.

I again suggested to Abe that he just throw the dildo in the trash, really, I didn’t know what else to say, and I apologized profusely to him.

Then again Abe said, “You are just lucky my Myrna didn’t see it.” By now I was starting to get irritated listening to him, so I said, Abe, why the hell are you so worried about Myrna seeing a penis. Where she comes from, in the Philippines little boys don’t even wear any pants.

Do you think Myrna never saw a penis before in her life, I said, get over it.

Abe hung up the phone, and he never spoke to me again, and we also never bought another thing from him as well.