Doswell Road crack salesman Desmond Figaro (left) is confident he can move a truckload of tubas he bought on a whim from a music supply warehouse in foreclosure.
“I can move some tubas!” says Figaro as he unloaded the last of the ancient, stained brass instruments from the back of his El Camino. “You know what would go great with that suit? A tuba!”
“When somebody comes in my store,” says Figaro, referring to Figaro’s Housewares of Broad Street, “One of two things is gonna happen: Either I sell you a tuba, or you sell me an excuse why you aren’t gonna buy one – and my friend, I AM the better salesman!”
Figaro says the secret to moving tubas is in the marketing. “I gotta come up with a good catch phrase,” he says, “Something catchy . . . like, ‘Cure the winter blahs, with Oomp pah pahs’. Something like that.”
Figaro says he plans to sell the tubas for only a 15% markup on what he paid for them. “I gotta move these tubas!” he exclaimed when he added in his transportation and storage costs.
“People ask me all the time: ‘How do you move a truckload of tubas?’ and I say, ‘One at a time, baby!’”
