The Old Hooker, The Pickled Egg, The Slim Jim And Agents

As promised, the story of the old hooker, the pickled egg and the Slim Jim; the art of negotiating.

Today was the last day of Barbara Rogan’s writing workshop. She has exhorted us all to go forth and conquer the world, or at least an agent. One thing that is always on a new writer’s mind is representation. We make our lists. We check them twice. We ponder, compare and finally take a deep breath and start submitting. Somewhere, consciously or unconsciously, we have to decide what we are worth and what is important to us.

This agent is new, but has a high interest in your genre. That agent reps a writer you admire. This one is actively seeking new writers. The other one is in New York. An agent from California sounds good. What about the one who is with a firmly established agency? You heard this one is good at keeping in touch with his or her clients.

That’s when you have to decide what’s important to you.

That’s when we can take a lesson from an old hooker in Washington.

Don always said I should never be allowed in public without adult supervision. I have a tendency to attract odd, I prefer to think of them as colorful, people. It was no different in August of 2006. I had to find an auctioneer to sell my father’s property. The one who best fit the bill was also a singer and entertainer.

Stan took me out to lunch one day and got to talking about a friend of his who is also a singer. I wrote the story down, but apparently it didn’t get onto the back up disk, but I will recount the adventure as well as I can remember.

His friend went into a small, dive kind of bar in Washington to have a drink and was sitting there minding his own business when a conversation between two people heated up. The man was an old man who had seen better days, but not a bath for a while. The woman was a lady of the evening, who had seen too many nights and not enough knights.

He wanted to know how much she wanted to go out in the alley beside the bar and give an oral recital.

She might be old, sagging, bagging and dragging, but she had principles and she wasn’t cheap. She knew what she was worth and she wasn’t budging. The negotiations continued and got louder as they progressed. People are passionate about things they hold dear, after all.

“I’m not doing it unless you buy me a drink, a pickled egg and a Slim Jim.”

“I’ll buy you a drink.”

“I ain’t doing it for a drink. How cheap do you think I am?”
Obviously, his idea of market value and hers differed at this point.

The negotiations continued and he agreed to buy her a pickled egg and a drink.

All right, she wasn’t cheap, but she could be had. She shook her frizzy gray head and pursed her scarlet lips. “I ain’t doing it without a Slim Jim.”

“You aint worth a Slim Jim!”

“I ain’t doing it without a Slim Jim. I ain’t that cheap.”

Yes, I love a scrapper. Decide what you’re worth and hold out for it.

“I’ll buy you a drink and a pickled egg. Let’s go.”

“Nope, I ain’t doing it without a Slim Jim.”

And that’s where the negotiations broke down. She had a firm idea of what she wanted and what she was worth. By damn if Slim wanted his Jim to see daylight, the old boy better ante up the Slim Jim.

Stan’s friend, being a songwriter, did what any self-respecting song writer would do and wrote a song about the old hooker, the pickled egg and the Slim Jim. Unfortunately, it never made the charts, but then sometimes we just need to write because it needs to be written.

I will call Stan one of these days and get a copy of the cd from him.

Until then, we need to follow the lead of the old hooker and decide what’s important to us. I’m not sure how to tell a perspective agent I want them to act like an old hooker and hold out for the Slim Jim, so I will probably leave that conversation until after they agree to rep me.