Roy: Hi, how are you?
Customer: Hi.
Roy: Can I help you?
Customer: Well, I sure hope so. Bought this bag of pretzels, new, and we were out on a boat, and I don’t know if maybe it was the vibration of the engine, or whatever, but it’s dislodged all of the salt off of the pretzels…
Roy: Oh, yeah.
Customer: …And now it’s all accumulated down at the bottom of the bag.
Roy: Oh, all down there.
Customer: So, I mean, we’re pretty much a salt-with-our-pretzels family and I don’t…I’m just hoping your expertise can…bail me out.
Roy pauses, thinking, exhales deeply, and looks back at the customer and the bag of pretzels.
Roy: I’m gonna be honest with ya. (Pauses again, rubbing his chin.) I’d go buy another bag of pretzels.
Customer: Really?
Roy: I…(shakes head) Look, I’ll tell ya. You see, these pretzels are made by machines. The machines put on the salt. Now, I–I could do the work…but it’s by hand. It’s one grain of salt at a time.
Customer slowly starts nodding
.
Roy: Now that’s–that’s man hours, that’s a lot of man hours. Even if I gave ya a real good deal.
Customer (stammering a bit): Well, how much would it be if we–let’s just say we just–we did it.
Roy: Top of my head, I’m saying $90.
Customer whistles.
Roy: Or 80.
Customer: Oh, wow.
Roy: Eighty, ninety. I don’t know. I don’t know, that’s a lot of work in there.
Customer (looking at bag): It’s only…
Roy: What is that?
Customer: It’s only
a dollar nine.
-Roy’s Food Repair, John Candy skit, The New Show, 1984