“Fool me once, shame on you.  Fool me twice, shame on me.”

(No offense to my friend and professional fool, AES.  This is totally different than her sort of fooling.)

Because I AM that much of a geek, I’ll always attribute this little bit of wisdom to Scotty from the original Star Trek series.  Yes, I know he didn’t coin the phrase, but his line from some episode repeat was the first time I’d ever heard it.  Back in the day, I was such an obsessive Star Trek fan that it’s not surprising.  Later in life, there’s a whole new (now old) Trek franchise that I completely ignored – I had barely caught up with Scott Bakula in Quantum Leap.  There’s also at least one Trek movie that I’ve never seen.

Times change, obsessions change, but some things stay with me.  Like Scotty’s quote.  Good thing, too.  Because now I have use for it.

Now that the Racine property is back in our possession and we’re getting it repaired and cleaned, I have another opportunity to live this lesson.  Let’s see – how will it go?  How about, “First, last and cleaning deposit.  I have a monthly service that keeps the yard nice and I will call you every once in a while to see if there are any repairs needed.”

That’s pretty close.

Significantly,

Susan Scot Fry

Update… On retrospect, I’m feeling pretty comfortable with this.