My buddy, Jon, and I took a trip to New Jersey during our first summer after high school. By the time we got there, we were broke, had crashed our car, and were stranded. Our unsympathetic parents abandoned us to fend for ourselves. Fortunately, Jon's grandfather, Gramps, lived in New Jersey and we were able to stay with him until we could get back on our feet.

It was also fortuitous that Gramps had a neighbor, Fred, who owned a company called Elastofab, a factory that made rubber pinch valves. Fred was a good friend to Gramps, and he put Jon and me to work for the summer, even driving us to work each day. He became a friend and mentor. The rubber pinch valves were for small and medium sized pipelines containing various kinds of fluids. They were short, from 6 inches to 2 feet long with an inside diameter ranging from 1 inch to six inches. They had thick flanges on each end designed to connect to pipes.

One day, Elastofab was asked to make a prototype pinch valve that was five feet tall with an inside diameter of about 18 inches. Huge by our standards. Well, something went wrong, and the prototype failed. Elastofab now had a huge pinch valve that wasn't worth a nickel.

The next day, Jon and I found the giant pinch valve in a back room of the factory. We assumed it was destined for the dump, so we decided it would be funny to carve a derivative of the company name into the large flange. Who would care?

A day or two later we heard a booming voice say, WHO DID THIS! WHO WROTE THIS! The foreman was out of his mind with anger. He called the entire crew of about 20 guys over to see word ELASTOFUCK carved into the flange. Jon and I were shaking in our boots.

During the group interrogation, which included frequent and deliberate pauses when the foreman stared at Jon and me, Jon fessed up to the crime. I was stunned. He was a better man than I. I was ready to take it to the grave. Upon hearing Jon's confession, the foreman shook his head slowly, back and forth. Then he said in a grave voice, "Go tell Fred."

I gasped and thought, "No! Don't make him do that." I pleaded with the foreman as Jon was walking slowing through the parting crew down the path to Fred's office, his head hanging low in genuine shame. Fred was our friend, our hero, we owed him, he would be so disappointed. The foreman finally relented as Jon reached the exit, calling him back from the brink of humiliation.

What a relief. We really didn't mean any harm. We were just acting like the fools eighteen-year-old boys often are. As far as we know, Fred never found out. In fact, just before we headed back to California, he invited us to the original Playboy Club for a night out. Not the act of someone who was disappointed. Gramps didn't let us go to the Club. God's punishment, I guess.

~ Andrew Laufer

Papa Laufer’s Stories: Positive Reflections of Life in America is now available on Amazon.