Fussin',whinin' and complaining

My parents owned a furniture store in Norman, Oklahoma. I grew up having to deal with furniture which was either in the store or on the delivery truck. After school I always had to go down to the store and work for the rest of the day. The store closed at 6 PM unless someone was in the store or coming into the store and then we waited. If I wasn't delivering something, I was either putting something together, sweeping the aisles, dusting, washing the front windows, washing the delivery truck or something. You can learn a lot delivering furniture. For example, I learned not to grab the side of a television where the knobs were placed because that would be the heavy side. I also learned to tie things into the bed of the truck and close the tailgate--you know, finish the job. One time my cousin Steve and I were delivering some roll-away beds and when we took off from a stop light those beds rolled out the back end of the truck and crashed onto Main Street. It was embarrassing to have traffic stopped while we ran around gathering up several roll-away beds and returning them to the truck bed. This time we made certain they were tied down and we had closed the tail gate. I usually delivered with my Dad especially if he needed an extra hand and the delivery could wait until I was out of school. I can remember several times delivering with my Dad when I would be fussing, whining and complaining about something. Dad would listen politely after which he always replied, "Richard, we could have had this in the house in the time you were complaining. Now, if your finished, we still have to carry this furniture into the house."