What Brother’s Won’t Do

The day after 9/11, things got crazy at my new aerospace company. I had done an interview a few months before on air rage with the Fort Worth Star-Telegram through a connection I’d made at the Association of Flight Attendants. It was a fateful move, because that article and TTF’s name were the first things that appeared when you Googled reinforced cockpit doors. TTF was prominent in the article, so the phone started ringing and it didn’t stop for months. In the weeks that followed TTF was in newspapers all across the country and mentioned by then-senator John Kerry on the Senate floor. I was interviewed on local TV stations and for dozens of news outlets, and I appeared on national radio talk shows like NPR’s Science Fridays. The topic was so big I actually followed the Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, on the radio! I was both awed and in disbelief by all the attention. TTF’s reinforced cockpit door became a feature article in Design News magazine. Then-Congressman Jay Inslee used our engineering office to make a statement to local TV stations. It was a whirlwind of distraction at a time when we were trying to figure out how, as a company of 6 employees, we were going to survive. 

I also entertained lots of phone calls from goofballs and crackpots who all had a better idea how to build a vault-like flight deck door. Most of these people had little technical experience and it was evident they were mostly interested in the commercial opportunity with little consideration for any other part of it. A lot of them thought it would be like selling widgets on a Ronco infomercial. One guy in particular got to me, though. He reached me over my office phone, and started in with this slow, southern drawl:

“Messa Morgan? Ha, ma name is James Beecham. Are you-u the fella what’s buildin’ them new-fangled airyplane doors?” 

“Yes, I am.”

“Ah haf an idea for you-u.”

Ok, Mr. Beecham, lay it on me,” I said.

“W-e-ell, ah haf ah baffroom tha’ peeple keep breakin’ int-o-o. An ah was thinkin’ ah cood use a doah like ya’ll is makin’.”

What the hell? “Well, Mr. Beecham, how many doors would you like to buy?”

“Oh, ah only needs one doah.”

Ok, another goofball. “Mr. Beecham, one door is going to cost you a lot of money.”

“Oh, like, $200 or somethin’?”

“Uh, no Mr. Beecham, more like $20,000.”

“We-e-l, that don’t seem rite. Ah only wants one doah.”

“You’re asking for a special door that is very expensive to make. I think you would be better off buying a different kind of door.”

“Oh, no. I needs a doah like ur-en. Is’s the only kein will relly work fo’ wha’ ah needs.”

OK, time to cut this off. “Well, Mr. Beecham, I can’t sell you one door. It’s too expensive for me to make only one and I have other clients who need doors for their airplanes first,” I said with a hint of growing irritation.

“How long will it take to get me my doah?”

“Mr. Beecham, several months but I can’t sell you a door.”

“But ah relly needs a doah fo’ my baffroom!” Mr. Beecham insisted.

“Well, you’ll have to find someone else to help you.”

“Oh, but I thin’ yo’ the only one kin hep me with my doah.”

“Mr. Beecham, I will not sell you a door. You’ll have to find it somewhere else,” I said with what I wanted to sound like a note of pissed-off finality.

I was about to hang up when this familiar voice suddenly started laughing on the other end.

“Oh boy, did I get you! Hook, line and sinker!” laughed my brother Mark.

It took me a second. W-what?! “Mark?! You dog, you completely fooled me! You changed your voice so well I never suspected it was you for a second!”

He was bustin’ a gut he laughed so hard. And all I could do was take it. He had completely suckered me. My own brother! How could he do that! I had to hand it to him. It was pretty funny. Unfortunately, that was about the only funny thing during those weeks.

Our little company had a small office in Tukwila, and my partner Brad and I knew we were going to have to find some way to manufacture our door. Soon we had 3,000 sq ft in a small Auburn office park and an agreement with the president of AIM Aviation Auburn to build doors for us. The alliance with AIM Auburn was interesting because we were not on good terms with the president of our former employer, AIM Renton. But I had known our Auburn connection for some time, and I knew that like us he had no love for the president of AIM Renton. Everyone in aerospace was hurting for any kind of work so Auburn’s president jumped at the chance to give his people something to do. Now all we had to do was finalize an airplane deal.

Amongst all this chaos and scrambling comes my brother and his well-honed gag. It couldn’t have been better timed for maximum effect. And I swear, his southern-boy accent was really, really good. I should have gotten suspicious, and any other time I might have figured it out sooner. But I was fielding lots of strange calls from people I normally would have no reason to interact with. So his joke was perfectly timed. Still one of the best jokes pulled on me of all time. Congrats, Mark. Now for my futile plea – please, don’t do that again!