A Pitch?

Some time ago, I hired a man to do some repairs in my home. (I freely admit to being too clumsy for even the simplest of DIY tasks.) The man brought four handymen with him, they finished the job in about 5 minutes, and because they were paid by the hour, we made them a cup of coffee.
The man then explained to us how he'd done all kinds of construction work all over the world, and launched into an anecdote about how he and his team had been called to Paris to open a safe that the Nazis had left there after the war, and that no one had been able to open for 50 years. His guys could, of course, and the way he told it, they were paraded up and down the Champs-Elysées for it.
Only later did I begin to wonder why the man had told exactly this story. True, it was impressive, but it didn't seem to have much of a point. And then it hit me. Why would someone so innocently profess his abilities to gain access to a hard-to-open safe? Was it perhaps to inform the listener that if he or she knew of a safe that needed opening, they were talking to the right guy? Was this some kind of bank robbery pitch in disguise? Maybe I'm just seeing things that aren't there, but I can't imagine a professional criminal not pricking up his ears when hearing this little story.

Posted by cronopio at 01:18 PM, December 19, 2005