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!
This guy is standing on this spot at an intersection near my house every day.
I figure this is his job. He often commutes to this spot on his bicycle. He has an umbrella for shade on a sunny afternoon or to keep dry during an afternoon shower. He must have a decent selection of t-shirts and shorts, because I never see him in the same outfit more than once. He’s clean, and has a nice haircut.
His sign doesn’t look like much. But it folds up quickly should a sheriff’s car drive by. He’s gotten to know a lot of the folks who drive by here, exchanging waves and smiles with them. I assume he takes home a decent amount of money. Otherwise, I’m sure he would move to a different location.
In an ever-changing world, he’s become a constant in our part of town. He’s faithfully in this spot every morning and afternoon. He cleans up all the trash from his spot, some of which isn’t even his. He graciously accepts whatever someone offers him, from a beverage to a few bucks.
I find his presence fascinating. I have little patience for sports teams who simply stand in front of a grocery store with a donation bucket in hand. Come one, guys, can’t you at least try to sell me some cookies or something? I’m suspicious of teams of people with buckets on all corners of a busy intersection. How do I know their organization is legit? Do I want to round up my purchase to support some charity I’ve never heard of? No thank you.
I like this guy. He’s the real deal. He’s not pretending to be anyone or sell anything. He’s not trying to rip you off. He just wants a spare buck or two. Today. Tomorrow. Whenever.
It was still dark as the Great Dane and I made our usual dawn circuit of the neighborhood. But it was that time of day when cars were starting up as people left for work.
Two sedans, one SUV, and a pickup truck filled one driveway. Brake lights came on as someone started up one of the cars parked in by the other three. We wondered, “What’s he going to do?” I figured another driver would soon come out to either leave first or maneuver a car so the other car could get out.
But no one came out. I watched as the driver kept moving up and back until he could sneak the nose of the car onto his front lawn. This time I wondered out loud, “Where’s he going to go?”
Somehow he snuck the car in between a large tree and the front sidewalk, driving into the front yard. I cringed. It’s been raining a lot, drainage swales are full, and the ground is soft. “There’s no way…”
There was a way. The driver swung around the tree and headed right towards what looked like a fairly deep ditch. I chuckled, “He’s going to get stuck.”
He didn’t. The nose of the car dipped into the stagnant water and up the other side, followed by the rear wheels. I’ll admit, I would have laughed out loud if he ended up straddling the swale. But he didn’t. Somehow he got up and out and zoomed down the road.
“It’s got to be a rental,” I said. I can’t imagine a homeowner driving across their own front lawn. Although, I’ve seen it before on my own street as impatient drivers spun deep tracks across the yard.
“Hey, if you’re going to Walmart, we need a trash can for the back bedroom.”
“Got it. See you soon.”
The back bedroom is now a scrapbooking, 3D and edible ink printing, and cookie packaging room. I’m constantly carting out paper trimmings, sticker backing, and leftover 3D printing scraps. A trash can back there will be a welcome addition to the room.
At Walmart, I pushed my shopping cart towards the “Home” aisles, where I was sure I’d find a not-too-ugly container. I was right. I had a whole aisle full of them to choose from.
But I was not prepared for the cost of a simple can. The first few metal cans I looked at, with a foot pedal to open the lid, were $49.95. That’s crazy. There must be something cheaper. Right next to them were some that would set me back $80. But they were equipped with a motion sensor, so that the can would open anytime you passed by.
I was ready to give up and go get the rest of my list. But at the other end of the aisle, there were a few $24.95 models. Rather than metal, it was a metallic-looking plastic. It felt flimsy, but I wasn’t going to use it that much, so I went ahead and bought one.
What did I expect? I guess I was hoping to get a basic container for under twenty bucks. Unfortunately, few things I but for around the house cost less than $20!
Ironically, my son had ordered one of those deluxe motion-sensor cans for his kitchen just a month ago. In haste, he had Amazon deliver it to our home rather than his, so I had to return it for him. At his home, the can would get a lot of use, so the investment made sense for him.
Last month, we took my son and his family out to supper at a nice seafood restaurant in Saint Augustine. As we were looking over the menu, I overheard an interesting conversation at an adjacent table.
“I’m allergic to all kinds of seafood. What else do you have?”
The menu was filled with wonderful appetizers and entrees. With dishes ranging from gator tail to butterfly shrimp to the catch of the day, I had a hard time deciding on what to order.
I listened with interest as the waitress explained to the seafood-allergic customer that they had little to offer a hyper-allergenic customer.
Why? Why would you come to a seafood restaurant if you were allergic to all fish and shellfish? What were you thinking? What did you hope would happen?
The boyfriend was beside himself. This was a bad idea. No matter how you look at it, this was going to be a bad night. She’s pissed at you. You’re both hungry. There’s nothing on the menu you can order.
Waite for it... 