Finally, a sale!

It's hard to believe I'm excited about one sale of one typewriter, but there you are.

A woman walked into the store, elderly, around 80 years old, and asked if we had a Smith-Corona model 200. I told her that they don't make those anymore, that the Smith-Corona 200 series had been discontinued more than 40 years ago. She said that couldn't be possible, as she had just purchased one last week. That didn't make sense to me.

I asked her why she needed a new one now if she had bought one last week, and she told me she had misplaced it. Apparently, by her account, she had been visiting her parents' home, and had brought the new typewriter with her to finish some correspondence with her brother, who she said is a soldier fighting overseas in France. This morning, she had looked all over the house for the typewriter, couldn't find it, and decided that it was lost for good.

Fortunately for yours truly, she hopped on a city bus and asked the driver where she might find a new typewriter, and he dropped her off at the bus stop in front of my store (he has seen me many times outside my store as he drives by each morning). Within 15 minutes, she was sold on the new IBM, made her purchase, and I had one less piece of inventory.

She looked rather frail, frankly, so I offered to have the typewriter delivered to her home so she wouldn't have to carry it. She had already written me a check for the IBM, and while I normally charge a fee to have items delivered, I decided to just send it for free. It took her several minutes to even write the check, and I didn't want to prolong the transaction any more than I had to in case she changed her mind.

My store is in Alta Coma, CA, and she put her address down as being in Minneapolis, which I thought was odd. Also, I noticed she wrote "Minneapolis, Missouri," instead of the more familiar city in Minnesota. But no matter, my store services people from everywhere, so I'm glad to ship it off to wherever I need to.

So things are picking up. My radio ads have started, and while they haven't really produced much in the way of customers (the elderly lady from this morning notwithstanding), I am excited about the remote broadcast that the KZMO morning show will be doing from right here in my store next week. That may be the real turning point.