How Does A 700 Square Foot Inch Store Hold 1400 Square Inch Of Stuff??

I have no idea..

Algebra wasn't my best subject in high school but I can tell you that there is NO WAY you can fit more into a space then what a space holds.

Unless it's our store.. because then, OMG!! You can't imagine how much crap that store held!

We spent the entire day yesterday cleaning out the entire store. I actually wanted to start Friday night but you know.. that would have made too much sense.

Saturday we were open for the last day and Tim did clean out the kitchen and the under the counter selves so at least there was a start .. but all the sodas had to be crated and the groceries on the shelves and the ice cream and the potato chips ( omg there were soooo many bags of potato chips! ) and the Entennman's and the Little Debbies... and the pots and the pans and all the little odds and ends that showed up EVERYWHERE.

Then you had the coffee maker and the tables and the shelving and three soda fridges and sandwich table..

All on our front porch.

And our back porch.

And the living room.

And the kitchen.

It was insane.. it was a whole lot of work and I swear my body grew new muscles just so they would ache this morning.

Believe me.. there is NOT enough Tylenol in the world!!

So the only thing left to do today is clean ... and there is a steel table and some milk crates full of car stuff that I had taken out of the van when we got rid of it.

And then.. nothing. For now.

Except for today .. once the kids get off to school (and the reason why I'm up at this ungodly hour) is that we're going to take a ride far up state and look at some stores to rent. And then if we like one or either, we'll have to look for a house to rent.

We're talking a minimum of 9 hours total in the car .. together.. and considering that he called me a hoarder (because I wanted to keep blank writing pads) and I called him a pig (for keeping empty jars of sweet peppers) .. I think I should set up the video camera in the car!!

I'll keep you posted

The End Of A Semi-Era

Since everyone who SHOULD know first have already been told, I can say publicly that we decided to close the deli.

Monday, October 25th was the last day we were open.

There are a number of reasons why we felt like we had to do it .. but it's important to understand that WE didn't fail. The economy did.. the neighborhood did.. but we didn't.

Nothing could have been done differently .. nothing was done that shouldn't have been done.. it just came down to the numbers. And when it comes to numbers, red doesn't look good on anyone.

The economy tanking and unemployment sky rocketing didn't help any. When we first started, about 60% of our business was food stamps. Now, less then three years later, that number is up to about 90%. I wish we didn't have to bother with food stamps because it cost us around 65 cent every time we swiped that card. We also had to pay the tax on stuff like soda because you can't charge people on food stamps tax. God forbid!!

Our wholesale prices increased which cut into our profit margin. There's only so much a person will pay for a soda.. and if my cost went up about 30 cent, raising the price by 30 cent meant people would think I was crazy for trying to charge almost 2 bucks for a 20oz Pepsi.

Electric went up.. costs went up.. and the one thing that we thought would have eased the pressure is Tim's home made stuff. He's an uber-chef and low costs meant a better profit for a price that the majority of people would pay.. but even then, he was under charging. The catering was the same way. People were getting his food for a steal. They knew it.. they commented on it.. but they weren't going to pay anymore for it.

The only people who were really profiting from the deli was our vendors. We had to buy stuff weekly (some even by contract) .. sometimes daily.. and we were hard pressed the  last two months to make the rent. Or the phone bill for that matter. And so Monday when all the bills came in the mail, we were both like Algonon in a maze. The pressure was getting too much.. we were taking money from the house finances to support the store and since my unemployment just barely covers the house, it started to cause tensions where there shouldn't be tensions.

And so we made the decision to lock the door. Emotionally, it was devastating. Tim tried to be stoic about it but I could tell when he started getting misty about it. That was "our" store.. something he always wanted to own and one that we spent a lot of blood and sweat on.

But you know, when you own a store people automatically think that you live in a mansion, have have a private jet and a vacation home in Hawaii. Nothing could be further from the truth.. in fact, we sacrificed SO much to keep those doors opened and shelves stocked. Maybe too much.. time together.. time with the kids.. time getting away.

The one thing that really amazed me though is how selfish some people are. Both of us have big hearts.. kind hearts.. and there were many times people came in and asked us for credit because they couldn't feed their kids and we gladly extended it. But then one time became a habit and that meant that while they were putting food on their table for THEIR kids, we couldn't feed HIS kids and so we stopped. We explained as kindly as we could and as non-personally as we could what the situation was and guess what? They stopped coming in all together. It's not that what they owed would have made a difference between closing the store and staying open.. but it's the principle of it. We were there for you.. but you wouldn't be there for us.

Life Lesson 563 learned the hard way.

So what are we doing now?

Well.. he's still going to do catering and we're looking for another storefront in an area where people don't bicker over the price of a soda. Optimally, we'd like to find a house with a storefront so that we can move and have only one rent payment instead of two. We'd rather be in a little town where people still have values and morals so we spent the day yesterday up and around Lancaster County but what we're looking for is proving difficult to find.

So if y'all know of any place .. or see any place.. let me know!!

If worse comes to worse, Tim is prepared to get a job until the right thing comes along and I'll do the same after my unemployment runs out ( there's no way in hell 25.00+ hr jobs are out there anymore ) .. until then, we'll just put our nose to the grindstone.. tighten out belts even tighter.. and have faith that everything will work out the way it was suppose to.

Good think we're used to being poor, huh? LOL!!

So to any of you who were our customers, a great big hug and thank you. Same to those who've done nothing but wish us well (I have to stop now because I'm getting all teary) .. but we'll be fine. We have no choice but to be.

Motivation

There's this young black girl that comes into the store. I think she's something like 14 or 15 but because of her height you'd think she was older.

At least I did ..

Anyway.. so.. she comes in fairly regularly and takes a good half hour to decide what she wants to buy and then only spends like a quarter or something.

One day she tells me that she's cheap.. that she doesn't like to spend money. Coming from a teen, I was impressed and told her that that was a good quality to have in life and would serve her well when she gets older.

Coming from someone who used to drop WHOLE PAYCHECKS on a pair of shoes, I think that I am qualified to tell her that!!

A few times after, she came in and told me that the reason why she doesn't like to spend money is because she is saving for a bicycle. She needs one and her mother won't buy it for her so she's saving her money to buy it herself.

THAT scored major points with me because Tim's youngest son has had four bikes stolen in three years because he's too lazy to bring them onto the front porch.. AND isn't responsible enough to NOT lose the key to the lock OR remember a combination to a lock.. so he just leaves his bike on the side of the house and it gets stolen.

Every.
Single.
Time.

So I'm not buying him anymore bikes. Refuse to. I think he only rode the last one like.. twice.. so that's why God gave you legs, Bucky..!

So.. off track.

Anyway.. I happen to mention the conversation with the girl to Tim and told him that I have a lot of respect for her. Yes, her spending a half hour in the store asking how much everything is every single time is a pain in the ass but you have to give credit where credit is due and considering his kids think their hearts desire should be presented to them on silver platters by toga wearing servants.. it's just refreshing.

So that's the back story.

Last week, we put a Toomey/Meehan sign in our window. I'm not going to go into that because everybody who knows us knows our political stance. In fact, when the Delco Patriots visited the store, they were reluctant to ask us to put a sign in our window because they didn't want our business to be hurt. I was like, ".. hell, we had a McCain/Palin sign in our window and we're still open."

This morning, Tim tells me this:

.. you know that girl you have a lot of respect for? Yea.. well.. she came in the store last night and I made her cry

My eyes got as big as Gaga's in the Bad Romance video and I was like, WTF??? Bad enough that we're justhisclose to closing the store anyway and you're making customer's CRY?

O.M.F.G!!

He tells me when she came in last night that she asked what the Toomey/Meehan sign was and he explained to her about the up coming elections and that the two running were Republicans. She made a face and said that Republicans don't help anyone. Tim told her that that wasn't true.. that he wasn't sure what she's grown up hearing but Republicans are charitable and isn't it better to donate because you WANT to as oppose to HAVING to?

I'm not sure exactly what words caused the transition but he wound up saying to her that she could be anything she wanted to be.. even President if she chose.

She shook her head no. ".. I could never be President."

Tim was like, "... of course you can! You can be anything you want to be.. the only thing stopping you is YOU! You're smart.. beautiful.. perfect just the way God made you."

And that's when she started to cry.

Other kids came into the store then so he shoved a handful of candy in a bag.. gave it to her.. and suggested that she might want to leave so she wouldn't be embarrassed.

Tim said to me this morning that that was probably the first time she had ever heard that in her life and it made me feel bad for her because you never know the life someone is living behind closed doors. I always say that kids are clean slates and only absorb what they're exposed to.

Maybe his words to her and her reaction to them brighten her spirit and erased some of the negative things she's heard in her life.

Maybe one day she WILL be a president.. of this country or of a corporation. Maybe she won't but maybe she'll be successful in whatever she chosed to do and maybe it will be because of what he said to her.

Most times, he can be a douche. I'm glad he wasn't yesterday and I hope that he got as much out of it as, hopefully, she did.

Deli Wars

.. ok, so just TRY and convince me that this wouldn't be a great reality show!!

So back in like, July or something, the pizza joint that's half a block away from the deli closed down and reopened as a pizza joint / deli.

Same owner.. but yknow, those nasty LLC's or whatever means that you can have an unsuccessful business, close it down, and then reopen it under a different name.

His pizza SUCKS by the way...

Anyway.. so now there's a new deli in town a half a block from ours and people being people are going to try it. Maybe because they live closer.. Maybe because Tim has a habit of pissing people off when he's in the front of the deli because he tells it "..like it is" .. which, btw, is why he is NOT ALLOWED in the front of the store!

But for whatever reason, we saw a drop in business.

August is always a struggle anyway.. for some reason, business tanks is January and August.. but this one almost put us out of business. We have no doubt that we'll be some people back.. the other place uses cheaper meats at higher prices and what he is under-cutting us on, he won't be able to sustain.

So while that all seems bad.. it's just a part of being in business and just something that we were going to have to scratch and crawl through. No biggie.

But then the borough decided to hold a Haunted House thingy at the local swim club and came in asking for donations which would entitle us to a sign advertising the business. Cool .. no problem.. AND because WE have THE best mini hoagies around, the borough wanted us to supply them. At a reduced rate, of course.

No problem.

So the dude running the thing comes in and tells us that the ODD (Other Deli Dude) was also willing to donate but he insisted on providing his own sign.. and wanted it in a prime location.. and basically wanted it to look like he was responsible for the whole sha-bang.

Upon hearing that, Tim decided to donate the mini hoagies. Hey.. it's a tax write off, right?

And he decided to bring in the same ham and turkey that ODD is using but sell it a few cents above cost. Being that we live in the welfare nation state, that will bring people in and the thought it that once they are in here, they'll pick up other things that bring us in more of a profit.

Dirty business, isn't it?

Ok.. so with that all laid out, yesterday afternoon this dude walks in and says CHICKEN SANDWICH to me. He obviously has an issue with English.. and I have an issue with hearing so yknow.. it was fun. Anyway, I ask him what kind of chicken.. we have Buffalo Chicken.. Honey BBQ Chicken.. Chicken Salad.. etc.

He wants Buffalo Chicken.

Ok.

Do you want it on a roll? On bread? White? Wheat? Rye? Potato?

He wants it on a roll with everything POSSIBLE on it.

Fine.

He asks how much and how long and I tell him $4.99 and 10 minutes because everything is sliced fresh.

He says he'll be back and leaves.

While I'm slicing the Buffalo Chicken it hits me. Was that ODD?? Was he in here checking out our prices and product?? Was our customers who go there for nasty pizza singing our praises??

Hmmmm....

So I describe the guy to Tim and he's like, yea.. that sounds exactly like him!

Now.. I could have completely blown out the hoagie and make it exceptionally special but our sandwiches already have a half pound of meat on them as it is and really, our smalls are more then enough for two people so screw it. He gets what everybody else is getting.

And then I wait .. and wait.. and wait..

About a half hour goes by and I tell Tim that if this JO doesn't come back for his sandwich then I'm going to call them up and order three pizzas and not pick them up.

He laughed at me because had had a conversation earlier about how uber-competitive I am. For the record, I don't think of myself as uber-competitive. I call it "drive and determination".

Anyway.. so Tim goes outside to talk to the crossing guard for awhile and I'm inside bouncing off the walls waiting for ODD not to show up so I can call in a pizza order.

But he does show up.. and it's NOT ODD.. just some random guy.

So I got all "aaarrrrrrggggghhhhh" for nothing but in my defense .. you kinda get like that when you're trying to save the source of income that feeds your family and puts a roof over your head. 'Cause ODD has the bankroll.. just not the business savvy ..

We're the opposite..

Anyway.. we'll see how this plays out.