Where That Sale Went

I need a piece of slate to cap a brick pier. I want it 36cm wide x 24cm deep x 2.4cm thick. And I want a hole drilled in the centre to pass a pipe through.

I was driving in slow traffic today when an estate car came alongside me, with the name of a local tiling company liveried down the side, and the information that 'slate' was amongst their specialities.

I dropped my window, beckoned to the driver to drop his, and told him I needed a piece of slate cutting and drilling and asking if he could do it.

"Sure", he replied, and passed his card to me through the two open windows.

I drove off, fully meaning to call him later, describe my piece of slate, make an arrangement to pay him, and order it up.

Except that's not what happened.

Once I was back at my desk, it just seemed easy and natural to Google for someone who could provide this to me in return for a quick email correspondence and a payment over the phone.

And that, which is just the way of the world, is how I come to have ordered my piece of slate from a company in Cornwall, and how a sale which the guy in the estate car must have felt certain was in the bag disappeared into thin air.