All Or Nothing

HYPOTHETICALLY SPEAKING, OF COURSE

Here is an excerpt of the complete and total idiocy I might have to deal with on a near daily frequency if, hypothetically, we were involved in a lawsuit with the people from whom we bought the store.  I mean, of course this is all made up, but just IF, if we were involved in something like that, this is an exchange that might, hypothetically, occur.  The most important thing to remember here is that this is ALL MADE UP!  NONE OF IT IS REAL!  DO YOU HEAR THAT, LAWYERS?

The lady who sold us the store is, and I am being as nice as possible here, very, very stooooopid (hypothetically).  She wastes so much time rehashing issues that have absolutely nothing to do with anything (again, hypothetically).  It would normally only be an annoyance; a slight, nagging, continuing decline in my faith in the human race, but it is costing me about $200 per hour (hypothetically!) to deal with her nonsensical issues. 

Here, I respond to a hypothetical email sent by her hypothetical lawyer to my hypothetical lawyer.  She is complaining, once again, that we have not complied with our contractual obligations to change the signage on the store.  Also, because the name of my store is nearly identical to the name of her "business", whatever that might be, we often get orders shipped to each others addresses.  Instead of just accepting this as a fact of a computerized nation, she consistently brings it up in regards to this lawsuit.  Like, hey! I know!  I will sue you because the companies we both order from hire foreign, non-English speaking shipping department employees and they often mix up my address with yours!  It must be your fault (hypothetically).

All names and identifying details have been changed.  Not that they need to be.  It's all hypothetical!

The neon sign placed between the store and the building next to it does say "Old Store's Name".  I have never owned this sign.  It belonged to Old Store Owner, henceforth referred to as the Devil, and was her sign for her business, after she sold us the store.  I can only assume that it belongs to the Devil's parents now, as they are now the owners of that business and that building.  But it has NEVER belonged to me, and I have never had any right to take it down.  In fact, when I bought the store, the Devil made us promise that she could keep that sign up because it was "her" sign for her business, and she needed it so that her traffic would not diminish.  Perhaps she still owns it?  If so, she should feel FREE to take it down.  I would love for it to be gone.

I have NEVER advertised with her name.  I would never even want to do so, and I have absolutely, unequivocally never advertised my store with any other name than "Current Store Name".  If the Devil's lawyer is "aware" of some advertising of this nature, I would love to see it.  Maybe they can produce some on their home computer, because it doesn't exist anywhere else.

I have no idea what the Devil's lawyer is talking about in his last sentence. Maybe companies are still sending my orders to her address?  If so, I am unaware of it.  Also, if this is still occurring, it has nothing to do with me or the Devil not being clear about our respective names and addresses, it would remain a problem with the company in question not reading carefully enough when they select their shipping address out of the computer.  As you can imagine, "Current Store Name" and "Old Store's Name" would be alphabetically right next to each other. Perhaps we could explain the alphabet to the Devil's lawyer and have him convey that system of organization to the Devil. 

They enjoy wasting time.

Peace

It could be the unnamable but unmistakably familiar aroma you smell right as you open your front door after a long day away from home.  It could be the high note in a song you've never heard but somehow remember.  It could be the little rush of endorphins that assault your senses as you decide that you will buy the new Charles David patent leather, pointy toe, sling back pump with a raised satin heel cup and pleating detail, and what could possibly be too hard to face in those shoes?

Sometimes it's nothing but the thought, however fleeting, that someday, you will be able to sit at the corner table in a coffee shop with nothing to do but read and sip.  And you remember how you felt the last time you had that pleasure.  Sometimes it's the smooth feel of the remote control in your hand with three good shows Tivoed and a bowl of warm popcorn in your lap.

Maybe particularly poignant lyrics, the kind that make you want to smile and cry at the same time, are what brings it on.  Maybe it's nothing more than knowing that at the end of the day, no matter what else went wrong, your dog will still love you.

I think it has something to do with the thought of laying my troubles down, and having something left once they are gone.  Knowing that if everything hard, everything bad, was removed from my life, even if it was just for a few seconds, I would still be there, and for those fleeting moments, peace would be the only thing I knew.

Santa's skipping the Bible Belt next year

As you know, I own a clothing boutique here in Tyler.  When I am there, working, I am normally out in the front of the store, helping customers, and selling clothes.  Shocking!  Is that really what goes on there?  I know, I am SO crazy.

Anyway.  I have been encountering this particular problem I am about to address less and less of late, but it used to be a real doozie, sometimes coming up two or even three times in a day.  The problem I am speaking of is Dealing With The Old.

The reason I encounter this problem less now is because over the last 14 months we have steadily weeded out the 70+ demographic and added in the 15-25 demographic.  This gets a lot of the Old out.  However, a certain sect of them still come around, buzzing like little gnats around my head and murmuring things about elasticized waistbands and boxy jacket/skirt sets.  And at Christmas time last year, we really hadn't weeded many of them out at all.

Enter last year's Christmas ad.  The ad pictured a woman in her 20's, modeling a line of jeans we carry in the store, and wearing a white, long-sleeved, button-down top tied at her midriff.  She was posing in a sassy stance, and had on some pretty jewelry and a very hot little pair of stiletto heels.  The caption read something like:  "See where she shops" and then had the name and address of our store.  It really wasn't all that jazzy, but was a really big, color ad, running lengthwise down one entire side of the paper for optimal viewing.

Well, if I ever had doubts about whether or not people saw my advertising, this Christmas ad assuaged them all.  I got SO MUCH feedback on that ad, most of it good, and we recorded tons of sales that month, but the most memorable thing about that silly jeans ad was and will always be the Letters.

First of all, let me note that the model in the ad was not some girl I know, or knew.  She was simply the model the national jeans company, I think it might have been Paper Denim & Cloth, had chosen for that particular campaign.  I just used her for my ad because I carry their line.  Anyway, that may not seem important now, but bear with me.

The first letter I got had no return address at all.  And it really wasn't a letter, per se, so much as it was the ad cut out of the paper, folded up several times, and scribbled on in a nearly unintelligible handwriting. The gist of the letter, I suppose, was for the lady to express her dismay at the content of my ad, but she did it in a very stream-of-consciousness way.  She started off with simple little barbs, things like "'She' is a hoar" and "How does 'she' expect to ever find a decent husband dressing the way she does".  Then, with no real segue, she got all philosophical, articulating the many ways that I was singlehandedly bringing the youth of Tyler straight down to the fiery pits of hell.  Christians don't do things like this, she explained. IF you were a Christian (and believe me, this was a very big IF for her, apparently) then you would KNOW what we do and do not think is appropriate.  But you obviously don't know, because you are NOT one of US.  What would your mother think?  More importantly, what would that model's mother think?  Has anyone talked to the model about how SHE felt about the ad?  More than likely she wasn't even a willing participant.
I think the lady probably had more to say, but the ad wasn't THAT big.  I mean seriously, it costs a pretty penny to put a full column color ad in the paper, much less one that has the wherewithal to change people's spiritual destiny.

Another letter we received in response to the ad was written in a similar chicken-scratch handwriting, but with a decidedly different angle of attack.  This woman also cut out the ad, but instead of writing her thoughts along the sides, she decided to go with the famous Circle Barrage.  She would circle a body part of the model in thick black ink, and then, in case we didn't get the picture, she would write the name of the corresponding body part next to the circle followed by multiple exclamation marks.  CIRCLE! This is her BELLY BUTTON!!!!!!! CIRCLE!  Her CLEAVAGE!!!!!!!!  CIRCLE!  Her (gasp) CROTCH!!!!!!!  I mean, the model was wearing a long sleeved shirt and jeans.  Yes, that's right, lady, that is where YOUR crotch is, too.  Right there under the zipper.  Thanks for the anatomy lesson.

Oh, and her letter did have a handwritten return address.  It read: 
Decency Council of Tyler
Tyler, TX 75701
But it was postmarked from some completely other zip code.  Interesting.

However, our very best letter from that ad was the one from Spider.  Yes, Spider took the time to not only write, but type, on a real old timey typewriter, a letter to tell us that even though he is in prison right now, he would REALLY like the chance to meet the girl in that ad.  He figures that he will probably not be up for parole for about 8 more years, but that he has lots and lots of time to write, and if she would just consider writing him back, he thinks he could be a really great pen pal.  He went on to explain that it is very lonely there in prison, and unlike most of the other inmates there, he isn't trying to deny that he is guilty, nor is he trying to get out of his sentence.  No, he fully admits that his assault with a deadly weapon charge was fair and well-deserved.  All he is asking for is the chance to write letters back and forth with that well-dressed girl from the ad.

Oh Spider.  I couldn't bear to break it to him that I don't know that girl's address, or even if she actually exists.  For all I know, she was merely airbrushed into magazine ad existence and then deleted right back off that computer screen and out of his life forever.

And God only knows that I couldn't write the man back myself.  He specifically asked for the GIRL IN THE AD.  And as lady #1 explained very clearly, Christians don't do things like this.  And I, despite lady #1's certainty on the issue, am, in fact, a Christian.   So it follows from simple reasoning that a letter to Spider would be out of the question.

But if I ever do meet that girl, the one from the ad, well, I will give her Spider's address.  In fact, if you are reading this, and you were a model who posed for Paper Denim & Cloth's fall 2005 denim line, shoot me an email, will ya?  I have got some things we need to talk about, number one being the state of your eternal soul.

Back In the Saddle Again

It's kind of hard to spit out the witty and intelligent prose you people are used to getting from me (ha!) while my new kitten* crawls all over me and I have the Back In the Saddle chorus going through my head incessantly. 
Also: the not-so-new-kitten, now more of a mildly obese cat, keeps hissing evilly.  Not at me, but at the new kitten and then when that doesn't work, inanimate objects as she sees fit.

I am, however, back in the proverbial saddle.  I am writing again (can't argue with that, eh?), I am taking more interest in taking care of myself (going to get my hair cut and something done with it after...6...8...12? months of doing absolutely nothing), and I have not so much crawled as been YANKED out of my black hole of semi-depression and unhappiness.  This all happened last week, as I traveled to Los Angeles for the Last Hurrah of the store.

There's not much I can say to concisely explain the Store Situation, but in an attempt to sum it up, I will say that it has been an Experience to out-experience all others.  It has been awful, it has been wonderful, and above all, it has been DIFFICULT.  Difficult to the point of being basically impossible; an uphill battle that we could never win; a web of deception from which we are STILL trying to extricate ourselves.  That's the wordy emotional short-descript, the logical numbers-based explanation is that the previous owners told us, our accountants, our attorneys, and the IRS that the store was grossing a certain amount per year in sales, and we bought THAT store.  You know, the one that was grossing A CERTAIN AMOUNT PER YEAR IN SALES.  Actually what we got though, was some other store completely, one that was NOT EVER grossing that certain amount per year in sales.  So we bought a dying business, one that the previous owners were trying desperately to get out from under, and when they discovered that no one wanted to BUY a dying business, decided that hey, I bet people might want to buy a thriving business!  Let's just lie! 

And it worked.

We are dumb.  But not really, that is one of the mindsets that got me OUT of the saddle in the first place.  That and truly believing that the store and all the misery it has caused was all MY fault, that somehow I could have known what two accountants and an attorney and the US government didn't know, that I convinced by so much arm-twisting my father and brother-in-law and his wife to participate in this business endeavor, and that now that the business is failing that it is ALL MY FAULT, EVERYTHING IS ALL MY FAULT, I HAVE CAUSED SO MUCH PAIN FOR EVERYONE AND I AM A TERRIBLE, STUPID PERSON.

Isn't that an impressive amount of self-confidence?

But the facts of the matter (when I choose to recognize them and step out of my world of self-depreciating guilt) are that I never convinced anyone to participate in the business, they all saw the same numbers I did and WANTED to do it.  The fact is, I didn't go to school to be a CPA, our accountants did, and I, although I had plans to go, have not been to law school either.  But our attorneys have!  And they all believed in the business as well.  We all saw the same balance sheets, all saw the same financial statements, and all researched and believed the made-up statistics. It was a good trick.  And we all equally bought into the business, AKA the Lie-To-End-All-Lies.

Another fact is that we have now had the store for over a year, and our sales have been excellent.  We have done better this past year than the previous owners had done in quite a few years.  Everyone told us to expect our first year to be the hardest; to expect lower sales; to give ourselves a learning curve.  But we went ahead and blew all of that out of the water, bringing in new merchandise, giving the store a major and much-needed face lift, and adding an entire GENERATION to our demographic.  We have kicked proverbial ass.

But it isn't enough.  We started in such a hole behind such a boulder up against such a wall (of cliches, apparently) that we would have had to do better than the previous owners EVER did, by quite a large margin, to even BREAK EVEN.  What a great deal, right?

So back to the Last Hurrah, the one I had last week in Los Angeles.  Basically, unless something miraculous happens (i.e., the legal system actually WORKING), the store is going down.  And I have been in quite a funk about it.  I have had a really hard time understanding how to be happy about a situation that has been nothing but bad, worse, and even worse.  How can I not live a life of stress and misery when nearly every day I get MORE bad news?  How am I supposed to smile and gracefully accept no paycheck, no respite, no justice for over a year now?

Well, the answer is that I was seeking the wrong answers.  There are no answers to those questions.  Or maybe those answers exist, somewhere, but they aren't known to me or anyone else on this earth.  The questions I should have been asking are not WHY or HOW or WHAT DO I DO.  Who cares why this happened to me, or to my brother-in-law, or to his wife, or to my dad?  Who cares how I am supposed to be happy in these circumstances?  Who cares about what I'm supposed to do with no paycheck or any of the financial security that it might bring?

I drove myself into a very dark place by asking those questions, and the only way I have FINALLY begun to see the light again is by my brother and his girlfriend telling me to get over myself.

What's the big deal? they asked.  Why are you letting yourself be so miserable?  So you bought a business, and it's not going so great.  Well, you must be the first person who's had that happen, right?  Oh, well, then, you MUST be the only person who has ever had financial struggles.  No?  The only person ever who has wondered why God placed them smack in the middle of a mess?  Hmmm.  Then maybe, just MAYBE, it's not that big of a deal.

So what, if the store goes down?  Have you tried your best?  Have you done everything you could possibly do?  So what if you have to face your worst-case-scenario: filing bankruptcy, corporately?  That will almost certainly NOT happen, but even if it does?  So what!  Are you dead?  Are you going to ever be able to recover?  Are you, at the ripe old age of 25, going to ever be able to build your financial history back up again?

I have a wonderful husband, a beautiful house that we built ourselves, a great and supportive family, a God who loves me and promises to take care of me, and a business experience gone bad.

So I spent last week in Los Angeles, buying what might very well be my last round of inventory for the store, and getting great and much needed guidance from the Lord, through my brother and his girlfriend.

I am going down with the ship, people.  I have tried my best at the store, and I will continue trying my best as it either thrives or fails in these next few months.  Because it might thrive, it really might.  We have a great shop, great merchandise, and a year of really good sales to build upon.  But if it fails, I will be the last one on the helm of that ship, standing proud, knowing that there was absolutely nothing I did wrong, and nothing I could have done differently to prevent the sinking.

*2 year anniversary present from my husband, who HATES cats passionately.  I guess he likes me after all.

Things That Aren't Nice, Part I

Telling someone over the phone that hey, don't you know, haven't you read the statistics, 95% of all new businesses fail in the first 3 years?  Isn't that CRAAAZY, those statistics?  I mean, statistics don't lie!  Better hope you're in that 5%, right?  I mean, wow, only 5%.  95% fail!  Did you know that?  Because I read that.  95%!  Wowee!

Thanks.

So anyway, then I bought this store, and well, that's enough about me, how are YOU?

That's why I haven't been posting much lately.  Let me give you some pictures, and you can see that it's true, and not a made up, elaborate excuse for being lazy.  Because lazy, that's a thing of the past for me. Along with seeing my husband regularly, working out, doing laundry, going on weekend trips, watching television, sleeping, and just about everything else I used to do. 

Oh yeah, and buying retail.  I'm not gonna do that anymore, either.