As the Halloween approaches I am reminded of this incident:
One Friday afternoon a call was patched through to my line. The caller was inquiring if we handled a particular model of fog machine. The unit in question was manufactured by Martin, and was probably the largest “over the counter” fog machine that you could buy at that time.
To say that it was big was an understatement. It was probably 28 or 30 inches long, bright red with black details, and resembled a prototype of a photon torpedo. It was loaded with special features that included timers, delays, and quantity controls. It had a wired remote control, too.
The caller was happy to hear that we had these monster machines in stock and promised to drop by the next morning. Our showroom was not open regularly on Saturdays. Off-season, meaning non-school and non-theatrical season, dates we were closed. But, October is a great month with new shows hitting the boards and the holidays, especially Halloween, were starting to appear on the calendar.
I was the first person in the store that morning. I turned on the lights, opened office, cranked up the ancient computers, and made sure the operation was ready to go for the day. Our rental department manager showed up shortly after I did, and he got his systems ready for the day’s send-outs and returns.
I checked our stock and tagged one of the big Martin fog machines to put it on hold. It was fully “new in the box” and sealed up with the usual array of tape and strapping. Then I went out to the rental department and borrowed the same model of machine. This unit had been returned from a job the evening before. Although it had been checked in, the technicians had not inspected and reset it yet. That meant it was “as is” and configured exactly as it had been when it was last used. It even had a jug of fog juice attached, which is nice for a demonstration. I didn’t have to open a new bottle.
Fog juice is an interesting fluid. Modern stuff is largely glycol, a food grade version, and some other “stuff”. You can get it, depending on the brand, if your choice of scents. Back in those days the apple scent was excellent, but the pina colada aroma could drive you crazy.
I took the rental unit out to our showroom and set it up on the floor, then I plugged it in so that it would be warmed up and ready to go before the customer arrived. Our showroom was 30 feet long and 15 feet wide. One side was lined with theatrical lighting equipment hanging from an array of pipe. The other side was decorated with custom curtain samples, photographer’s tripods and reflectors, and a few bits and pieces of sound equipment. The makeup department was at the front of the showroom, and the cashier’s station was at the back. A large window behind the cashier’s station overlooked the showroom. A side door led into the rental department.
A minute or so after I turned on the fog machine the customer and his son came in the front door. He had that “kid in a candy shop” look. His son was in his early teens. It turns out they were shopping for a big fog machine for their outdoor Halloween display. As he put it, “If my wife calls, I’m not here.”
Well, now, I had to ask him how big this Halloween display was. The son just laughed, and his dad said, “Big, really big! The police have asked us to limit the hours so the traffic doesn’t mess up the neighborhood. We do the display for 3 hours on Halloween, and that’s it.”
Okaaaay! Now that is MY kind of Halloween display! It meant he was buying a super-duper fog machine to use for 3 hours once a year. I was impressed.
These two guys were a regular father-son comedy duo, and they were cracking me up. I figured they were going to be cool. I pointed to the fog machine I explained that I had it warming up for them, but that I had to hop into the sales office for a moment to grab some literature to give them.
The instant I had my hand on the knob of the door between the showroom and the sales department the fog machine went off at full blast! There was a humongous WHHHHHOOOOOOOOSSSSH and a stunning jet of white fog blasted out of the machine. And it kept blasting, and blasting, and blasting. It was out of control. Within 30 seconds or so the showroom was filled with fog. And the machine kept blasting!
By the time I got back to the center of the showroom we couldn’t see more than a foot or so, at the most. The machine kept shooting fog, and the three of us were reduced to crawling on the floor. We were trying to find the fog machine and shut it off.
Finally, my customer discovered the machine, but he didn’t know where the switch was. I came across the unit just as he pulled the plug. The machine stopped. I told them to stay still and not move around, we were engulfed in white. It was too easy to bang into something. I worked my way to the front door and opened it. Then I found the switch to the ventilation fan. By this time the rental manager had come into the showroom and he was also trying to clear the place out. I was a little afraid that the neighbors would see the fog rolling out of the building and call the fire department.
In a few minutes the showroom was clear enough to see again. Apparently, the last rental customer had used the fog machine with the timer feature set up to blast fog at full power the instant the machine had warmed up. Then, it was set to blast for 3 minutes, then shut off, and blast again after 8 minutes, and then repeat the cycle. I had neglected to check the timer when I turned it on. Frankly, I don’t remember anybody ever using the timer function, so this was a surprise in more ways than one.
After we all got things sorted out and everyone was standing up again, I asked, “Well, what do you think?”
The client said, “I’ll take it!”
It was an easy sale.
A little later the boss came in and asked how the fog machine demo went. I just said that the demo was good enough for the customer to buy a machine on the spot, cash.
You can’t beat that.