Every morning as I’m walking my dog, I pass a woman walking her dog. She’s memorable because she zig-zags down the street. She walks from one side to the other, effectively doubling the distance they walk each day. She’s also talking to someone every morning through her AirPods.
It’s dark at this time of the year when we pass each other at 6:30 in the morning. My Great Dane shows no interest in her Schnauzer-ish dog, and he’s not interested in us, either. But she always says, “Good morning” to me. I always reply, but she doesn’t always hear me, because someone else’s voice is in her ear. So she’ll turn up the volume and repeat, “Good morning,” and I’ll repeat my reply.
Who does she talk to every morning? I picture someone else, a sister or child walking their dog at the same time, catching up on whatever happened since yesterday. I imagine it to be someone in Eastern Standard Time, since everyone else would still be asleep. But maybe it’s a friend in Europe, where it’s at least six hours later.
By the tone of her voice, it’s intense. A serious conversation. No nonsense. Almost aggressive.
I talk to God and the big dog when I walk. My words are upbeat, light-hearted, and at times, silly. (When you’re talking to a goofy Great Dane, it’s easy to be silly.) I have never had an early morning phone conversation. I don’t know who I’d call. All my friends are still sensibly sleeping at that time of the day.
I did a double take the other day. Who does the Road Ranger call when the Road Ranger truck breaks down? The Road Ranger? Uh, probably not. Thank goodness for John’s Towing.
So what happened? Dead battery? They would have jumped it or replaced it. Out of gas? Ouch. Embarrassing. It doesn’t look like there’s a flat. Overheated? Maybe. Blew the transmission? Who knows.
It like asking, “Who cuts the barber’s hair?” Or “Where does the doctor go when the flu hits?” How about the dentist with a toothache?
When I pulled up to the house, I noticed a business card on the front door. Another salesperson working the neighborhood. I get about two a week. Probably a tree trimming service.
It was someone from the internet company we used to have. Once another outfit put in fiber, I went with them for better speed and lower price.
The old coax company lost a ton of business and were out to win back some customers. This guy came back to chat with my wife while she was in the garage. He came back a third time to talk to me.
He laid it on thick, complimenting me on being a “legacy” customer entitled to a special deal. He claimed that the company had upgraded their equipment, so he could offer me the same speed I had with fiber for half the price. Plus, the system could handle up to 240 devices simultaneously. He’d install it so I could try what I had next to his company and decide which one to keep. For free. “Sure, why not?”
Someone was out the next day. The old line had been severed during some hurricane cleanup a few years ago, so the tech laid out a temporary line, set up a modem and router, and I was ready to give it a try.
At first, it seemed to work just fine. I was very tempted to save money each month. Then I ran an internet speed app. The download speed was a little faster. The upload speed was much slower. Hmm. That’s not what he promised. He didn’t exactly lie. He just didn’t tell me the whole story.
The next day, another tech was out to bury the new cable in the yard. These folks were serious. However, later that after noon, the system was down for a few hours. I haven’t lost internet service for years, not even during severe storms.
This wasn’t going to work.
Now I had the pleasant task of calling to cancel. I wasn’t on hold very long before a customer rep from Kansas City, Missouri, was on the line to help me.
I know he was just doing his job. I know he was following the script they gave him. “We don’t want to lose you as a customer. What if we took ten dollars off your monthly bill? Do you know we can give you free mobile phone service?”
I said, “I want to cancel my service” nine times before he conceded and closed my account.
The next day, I took back the modem and router to a local office. An emotionless young man took the equipment and said I was all set. I did not get any follow-up phone calls or correspondence from the company.
I guess that’s it. Until the next time they work my neighborhood.
It sounded like a pretty good deal. We were sitting across the desk from the finance guy at the dealer where we’ve bought most of our cars. We got a good deal, knew we wanted an extended warranty, and were lured into adding on a maintenance contract.
It sounded like a pretty good deal. The friendly young man explained it would cover all our maintenance except for tires, brakes, and wiper blades. It was less than twenty bucks per month. It would quickly pay for itself.
It sounded like a pretty good deal. Until I took the vehicle in for a second maintenance. Oil change and tire rotation. Paid for. Fuel system cleaning and wheel alignment? Here’s an estimate. I asked, “What about the maintenance agreement?”
“Oh, that’s not covered.”
When I explained the purchase I had purchased, he admitted, “I hear that a lot. That only covers oil changes and tire rotation. You’ll get a small discount on the other services, but they aren’t covered.”
When I got home, I read all the fine print. There was a lot of fine print. And he was right. The nice young man had lied to me. I willingly and naively took his word for it and signed the contract. I’m not out any money. It would pay for itself. But the whole agreement was really just a way to make sure I bring my car to the dealer for maintenance.
Since I can’t prove that the nice young man lied, I’m not sure I have any recourse. I will write to the dealer and express my displeasure. I will go to the trouble of reading these agreements more carefully in the future. I will challenge those who offer me those really good sounding deals.
I asked my barber, “How often do you have someone sharpen your scissors?”
He replied, “I don’t do that anymore. The last pair came back ruined. So I just buy a box of a dozen and use a new pair when the old ones start to pull.”
I remember a friend of mine who had owned several restaurants telling me someone came to sharpen her kitchen knives every two weeks. I assumed that barbers and stylists did the same. Your favorite pair of scissors is worth maintaining, right?
Not any more. Scissors have become disposable, just like shoes and televisions. I’m old enough to remember when we had a shoe repair shop in our community. A new set of heels added life to my favorite comfortable, broken-in, leather shoes. Now it’s cheaper to buy new shoes than find a shoemaker.
I remember my dad taking the back off our TV to fix whatever wasn’t working. He was an electrical engineer, so he knew exactly what he was doing. He would take some of the vacuum tubes to the hardware store to test them. Sometimes he would replace one. Other times he would solder something. With a multimeter in hand, he could figure out which resistor or capacitor to replace.
I doubt anyone repairs TVs any more. A new one is inexpensive and probably better than the one you bought a year ago. Just put it out with all the others on trash day.
So if you’re going to take you bicycle along with you, get a good rack. This Bell trailer-hitch rack looks awesome.
Next, be sure to fasten it securely to the rack. Bungee cords are great. This cyclist used them effectively with one unconventional adaptation: a neck tie.
I had never seen that adaptation, so I snapped a quick picture before the light turned green and we were on our way.
I like imagining the driver in a very nice suit and open neck shirt, without the formality of a neatly tied tie around the bike rack.
Or a student heading back to the campus of the University of Florida, grabbing one of dad’s ties for the bike. Dad has lots of them hanging in the closet. He won’t miss one.
Maybe the tie already had a spot on it. They’re expensive to clean, so why not just use it for the bike?
When I had a couple of bikes on the back of a car, I used the fabric-covered chain with combination lock. Too much stuff disappears from cars when you’re inside the convenience store for some coffee and a snack.
I love to eavesdrop while I’m sitting at Starbucks. I was sitting outside while I waited for the little dog (Winston the Westie) to be groomed and overheard an interesting conversation.
He sat down behind me at an outdoor table, opened up his laptop, and started up a conversation with someone who sounded like his trainer, coach, or mentor.
I chuckled as he explained, “My big win this past week was potty training my daughter. She’s doing well with pee-pees, but we’ve got some work to do with poo-poos.”
This is a man after my own heart. A dad who’s first priority is his daughter. He continued, “I didn’t do the reading. My week was too busy.” I couldn’t hear the other side of the conversation. I wonder if the other person had as much respect for this guy as I did.
It’s hard to balance a job, parenting, and a relationship (marriage?). No one has time for everything. Sometimes you have to make a choice. I would definitely hire/mentor/train someone who put children and family first.
After about a year of making custom iced sugar cookies for birthdays, showers, weddings, and holidays, we decided to sell as a vendor at a fall festival. The one we picked was a big one, with a big up front fee, and a big historic crowd. We baked, decorated, and wrapped up hundreds of fall and Halloween cookies that were sure to sell like hotcakes.
That event never happened. Weather predictions, which in Florida are always accurate (lol), called for severe thunderstorms that weekend, so on Wednesday we got the message that it was rescheduled for February. February? None of what we baked would keep till or sell in February. We got our fee back, but what about all those cookies?
We hurriedly discounted our inventory for some of our faithful customers and were able to sell a decent amount of product. But driving through town, we saw a sign for another fall festival at a local private school. When I stopped in the front office, they told me they had no room for any more vendors. But when I stopped back a second time with some sample cookies, we were in!
The festival was just four hours for a single day, probably a better first time event for us. The morning was gray and drizzly, but we headed over with our tables, tent, and cookies, setting up in the school parking lot with lots of other vendors.
We got our tent, tables, banners, and cookie displays set up in about forty-five minutes. I thought our set up looked nicer than most of the others around us. Maybe I’m partial, but we had nice colors, displays, and banners. In any event, we were ready for the onslaught of cookie lovers!
We didn’t sell out, but we didn’t do badly for our first time out. Our most popular cookies were traditional ones, like peanut butter, chocolate chip, snickerdoodle, and one with M&Ms. We sold some of the printed and decorated iced sugar cookies, but not as many as we thought.
Many people came by and asked, “Are those all cookies?” Yeah, that’s all we sell! I guess some of the square cookies printed with fall designs looked like coasters. We also had lots of princesses, unicorns, and mermaids, along with sports themed cookies. Add to that lots of “drip” baseball, soccer, and football designs, and we had everything kids were looking for.
A good number of people asked about custom orders and took business cards. We saw several families I haven’t seen in years with kids who had grown up so quickly. I think the best part of the day was talking to people from the school, the community, and other vendors.
As I expected, we learned a lot from our first vendor event.
Most people paid with cash. But I also learned how to work the hardware to accept credit card payments. Some used their card for a two dollar purchase.
Basic cookies sold well. The seasonal cookies didn’t really make a splash. Cute cookies did ok. It’s really hard to figure out what people will buy. When you’re selling a product with a short shelf life, that’s important!
Our set up and tear down was easier than we thought. There are a few things we want to get for a better display next time.
I enjoyed this first vendor event. I liked talking with people and talking about our product and how we made everything. We didn’t expect to make a lot of money. Some of the day was for exposure, to secure future orders.
We asked a lot of people what we should make and how much would sell. The many different answers we got didn’t help at all. I’ll bet any vendor has great days and awful days, without much rhyme or reason. It’s all part of the adventure.
If you’ve read this far, you probably want to learn more about and order our cookies. Just go to backseatgracebakery.com!
Waite for it... 