Like many before me and like many after me, I once worked with Steve Mapes. Since Steve Mapes was a child he would pay other people to hang out with him. Later on in life this is still the case. "Hey do you want to help me haul some junk, it will pay $50 an hour". This sort of money was hard to turn down even if you were aware of the ever present Steve Mapes tantrums. This was the only way he could get people to hang out with him even if it was only an hour or two.
Steve picked me up one day after saying, "Someone will pay us $75 dollars to cary some stuff down the stairs, I'll give you half". Right then I figured I would make a quick $37.50 in an hour and be home before he has an episode. No such luck. We get the the people's apartment. They simply want help loading all the living room furniture and some boxes into a huge moving truck just out the door down the stairs. No problem. The person wanting the work done is this Lincoln Police Officer Woman. Her boyfriend helping us was like 6 foot 5 and 300 pounds. I think he was either a cop as well or perhaps a Nebraska Football player. Carrying the things down to the truck was a breeze and I was just glad to be out on this beautiful summer day. I was feeling good about helping these folks and not even thinking of money. Besides that, it only took us like 30 minutes to carry these things out. Easy Peasy.
Then it comes time to settle up. The woman approaches Steve and says "Now I am going to write you the check for $75 as we agreed, I hope a check is good". Steve flys off the hook in an instant and raises his voice to this lady cop saying "NO! WE AGREED TO SEVENTY FIVE EACH!, WE AGREED TO ONE FIFTY!". The woman then calmly says to Steve kindly not to raise his voice in her house. I look over at her boyfriend and he has the same puzzled look as myself. The woman then speaks calmly to Steve saying, "Well you know Steve we did agree on $75 dollars on the phone or I would not even have you out here". Once again Steve Mapes flips out at the crack of a whip screaming louder this time, "YOU SAID 75 EACH! YOU SAID ONE FIFTY! YOU SAID ONE FIFTY!". At this point Steve's face is red as a beet and you can see spit flying from his mouth.
Now at this point I am thinking, A, this lady cop is going to flatten him. Or B, The giant standing next to me is going to pound Steve into the floor like a cartoon hit to the top of the head. Once again I look over at this gentle giant and he looks as I stunned as I do. I shrug my shoulders and then we watch for the next move. Cooler heads prevailed I guess. The woman frustrated wrote out the check for $150 shaking her head. She was just scammed.
When Steve was handed the check he walked out of her house right that instant with this "That's what I thought" attitude. After Steve exited the back door I stuck around for a few seconds to apologize to this woman and her boyfriend. The lady cop interrupted me in mid sentence saying " You don't need to apologize for anything and thank you so much for helping us". They both shook my hand and I thanked them. When I got back to the truck Steve was of course still screaming "They bucking tried to rip me off, do you believe that". My response of course was, "I need to go home".
In closing of this story let us remember the begriming quote: "Someone will pay us $75 dollars to cary some stuff down the stairs, I'll give you half". Now you don't have to be good in math to see Steve obviously made a $75 deal with these folks and changed it to $150 after the work was done. Now you see how he will act to an off duty lady cop. You should see how he treats little old ladies.
