You know, sometimes, the simplest things get twisted, especially when folks don’t talk plain. This whole “told i 5” business, man, it still makes me chuckle and shake my head a bit.
The Start of It All
So, there I was, knee-deep in this community garden project. We were trying to get a new irrigation system set up. Nothing fancy, just something to save us all from hauling buckets all summer. I was coordinating the parts order, and I needed to know how many of the main sprinkler heads we already had in storage. Old Man Fitzwilliam, he’s been around the block, supposedly knew everything about our little shed’s contents.
I found him tinkering with a lawnmower, asked him straight up, “Fitz, how many of those ‘Cyclone 3000’ sprinkler heads we got left?” He grunts, doesn’t even look up, and just says, clear as mud, “told i 5.”
That was it. “told i 5.”
What I Thought It Meant
Now, you hear that, what do you think? I figured, okay, he’s saying he told me already, and there are five of them. Or maybe he means he told someone else, and the number is five. Seemed straightforward enough, right? Five heads. So, I jotted it down. “5 x Cyclone 3000s in stock.” We needed about twenty in total, so I put in an order for fifteen more, plus some extra pipes and connectors.
The next few days were a blur:
- Called up the supplier, placed the order.
- Arranged for volunteer pickup because, you know, budget.
- Spent a whole afternoon sorting through the old pipes, seeing what was usable.
- Even started digging the trenches where the new pipes would go.
We were making progress, or so I thought.
Then the Parts Arrived
The new sprinkler heads arrived a week later. I got a couple of younger volunteers, and we went to the shed to get the “five” Fitzwilliam mentioned. We opened the box labeled ‘Sprinklers’… and found exactly one. One single, solitary Cyclone 3000, looking rather lonely.
My heart sank. One? Not five? I double-checked every dusty corner of that shed. No more Cyclone 3000s. My order for fifteen was now woefully short. We’d be four heads shy of completing even the main loop, let alone the smaller beds.
I was fuming a bit, I admit. All that planning, the tight budget, now potentially delayed because of this. I had to track down Fitzwilliam again. Found him by the compost heap this time.
The Big Reveal
“Fitz,” I said, trying to keep my cool. “You told me we had five of those sprinklers. There’s only one in the shed.”
He finally stopped his work, squinted at me and said, “No, son. I said, ‘told Ivy, five.’”
I just stared. “You told Ivy? Ivy who? And five what?”
Turns out, Ivy was a summer intern from two years back. And the “five” wasn’t the quantity. He’d told her to check section “I, sub-section 5” of his ancient, handwritten inventory list for the sprinkler info. A list, by the way, that was now probably propping up a wobbly table somewhere or lining a hamster cage. He hadn’t told me anything about the quantity. He was just mumbling about a past conversation with an intern about a list section!
“Told Ivy, five.” Not “told I, five (units).” The way he mumbled it, “Ivy” sounded just like “I” to me. And the “five” just hung there, making me assume quantity.
Sorting It Out (Sort Of)
Well, what could I do? Yelling wouldn’t magic up more sprinklers.
We were short. I had to:
- Go back to the supplier, cap in hand, and order four more heads.
- Explain the delay to the other volunteers.
- Waste another trip picking up the small extra order.
It set us back a good week, and the extra shipping for a small order wasn’t great for our shoestring budget. But eventually, we got it all done. The garden got its water.
Since then, whenever I need info from Fitzwilliam, I take a notepad, write down what I think he said, and then read it back to him very slowly. Sometimes he even confirms it. It’s a process, let me tell you. But hey, at least I don’t order the wrong number of parts anymore based on some garbled message about a long-gone intern and an ancient list.
