Chesterton Store is Closing

I'll call it The Experiment That Wasn't.

After only four months, my Chesterton Typewriter store has been shuttered. It was sudden, but really it wasn't so sudden, because I had seen this coming almost since the first month I'd been open for business.

You'll recall that my employee, Jacob Gray, quit after 10 minutes on the job, and that I'd been robbed on the same day (opening day). I should have seen that as an omen, because absolutely nothing went right from then on out. You might say that the events of opening day were the high points of the entire venture.

I won't bother you with all of the gory details, but between trying to pay my own personal bills, and having lost my car to the guy who wrote me a bad check, I was unable to come up with the rent on the Chesterton lease. After 90 days of non-payment, I found myself locked out of my own store yesterday morning, as the marshals had put a big lock on the front door along with an eviction notice.

I made a kind of half-hearted attempt to pay the rent with tpewriters, but they said no deal. I wasn't all that serious about the trade offer, but it was worth at least exporling the idea. No dice.

But in a way, this could be a good thing. My credit is now completely ruined, but at least I can consolidate and concentrate my efforts once again into my Alta coma location, which you regular readers know has not been setting the world on fire from a sales standpoint. By "going back to my roots," I am now able to redouble my efforts to get the customers rolling into the store once again.

I still owe Digger and the Pig $500, or so KZMO keeps telling me, and they've threatened to bring me to court in order to collect. I also owe about $11,500 for the radio commercials that to date have not brought in one single customer to my store.

But I am nothing if not resourceful, so I have an idea that I think may work for both myself and for my heavy-handed debt collectors. I will not reveal that idea just yet, because it may not come to the point that I will need to use it, but it's there.

Stay tuned, as they say!