The sale that wasn't, and more

I have a saying that I made up many, many years ago, and one that I think is universal. It goes like this: "When it rains it pours."

In other words, when one bad thing happens, a whole bunch of other bad things seem to happen right along with it. When I coined that phrase, more than 20 years ago, I had no idea that it would still apply to me in 2008, but it sure does.

Bad thing number 1: It turns out that I have to pay the KZMO morning team of Digger and the Pig the "talent fee" that I owe them for that so-called broadcast last week. One small silver lining is that I only have to pay a total of $500, instead of $500 to each of them. Big woop.

Bad thing number 2: My advertising contract with KZMO is non-cancelable, meaning that I can stop recording new commercials, but I can't get back the money I already paid them for the year. I could sure use that $24,000 right about now, because of:

Bad thing number 3: The old lady that came in last week and purchased an IBM Selectric gave me some bogus address to ship it to, and UPS sent the typewriter back to me. which means no sale. She wrote the following information on the sales slip: Mrs. Edna Greel; 565 Gramercy Boulevard; Minneapolis 16, MO. I figured she meant "Minnesota," and not "Missouri," so I shipped it there.

After a phone call from UPS saying the address didn't exist, I did some checking. It turns out that Gramercy Boulevard hasn't existed since 1967, when they put up Interstate 94 through that neighborhood. No house, no street, no delivery.

Then, on top of that, the check she wrote me turned out to be from an account that has been designated by the bank as "inactive." I hadn't noticed it at the time (my fault), but the bank the check was drawn on was the old Alta Coma Savings and Loan, which hasn't existed since the late 1980s. It had been taken over by a few different banks since then, most recently by Washington Mutual, and they are the ones who informed me that the check was not good. Well, well, well... no sale.

It's small wonder that I haven't seen her since she came in the next day looking for another typewriter. She must have sensed I was suspicious, made an excuse to leave, and never came back. Unbelievable. She had to be in her 80s, and frankly, she is the last person I would have suspected to pull something like this. If you can't trust an old person, exactly whom can you trust? It's a sad world.

Just in case, I'm going to leave my current sales tally for May at "1", instead of moving it back to "zero". You never know, she may feel guilty and decide to come back in and pay CASH for her typewriter. Yep, for her, it's strictly CASH ONLY next time.

I do have some hope for the future, though. Seeing how slow my business has been these past several years, the idea of expansion into other cities has seemed like a bad idea. But tonight I got to thinking: maybe a second store, in a brand new location, would be just the ticket. I was driving through Chesterton last month, and noticed that there were no typewriter stores anywhere. Okay, well, why not open up a second store in Chesterton and take advantage of the untapped market?

I will noodle on this idea for a bit longer, but the more I think about it, the more it starts to make sense. It will cost a bit for more rent and an employee to run the store, but sometimes you have to spend money to make money. You see, when it rains, it pours.. but that's only bad when it's not raining success!