Saturday, August 6, 2011

Welcome to My World

It's well known that July/August are the slowest two months in our industry. It's mind-numbingly boring and can be very stressful when trying to pay bills.

One of my favorite aspects to this time of the year (other than football starting), is the fact I get to have the nieces around the store. I love these little feisty thangs! I do better with 30 minute stretches of entertaining them. Well, maybe 15 minutes at a time...

They are constantly wanting to play with all the little "Jesus Junk" toys in the store....

This was one of those moments...


Thursday, August 4, 2011

Jesus Junk of the Week

Disclaimer: We do not actually sell these ... but they are out there, and that's scary enough...

A year or so ago, I was sitting up at the front of the store when I got a phone call. On the other end of the phone was a 'country' sounding lady, you know, one of those that feels the need to scream everything as opposed to speaking normally. She asks....

"DO YA'LL SELL JESUS SUNGLASSES??"

I said, "no, sorry, no Jesus sunglasses"... Needless to say, she was incredibly disappointed.

So, it got me curious and I started doing a little research.... Ya'll.... they exist!! Here are a couple of 'precious' designs.

WWJD

Jesus in 3D!!!

And people act surprised when I say this business can make you cynical....

Although, I'd be lying if I said these 3D glasses weren't AWESOME! Cuz they are!!!





Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Well, H#$%!

For about five years we had a small 'satellite' location in the town of Sumiton, AL. It did ok for a while, then it just started sucking the life from me and our Jasper location. It was plum depressing!! With it being a small place, we could literally do a whole days worth of business on 3 to 4 customers, if they spent enough money. That left me with hours of nothing to do.... Bored. To. Tears.

It seriously was depressing...

There was something really odd about this location, even though it was nearly 3000 sq. ft. smaller than the Jasper store, and even though we saw exponentially smaller crowds, the Sumiton store gave us the most problems with 'problem customers'. On the flip side, it also gave us a couple of our most memorable moments.

Like this one....

One day I was sitting there, in my daily struggle to decide what to eat for lunch.... this guy comes in .... late 30's .... skinny ..... I'm thinking there was some kind of West Jefferson Stache going on his face. You know, the one's that are dirty blonde and not exactly 'full' .... that stache.

Me: "Can I help you today?"
Stache Man: "I need a bible"
Me: "Cool, I can help you with that"

............. I walk to bible counter........ He looks blankly at all the bibles.....

Me: "What kind of bible are you looking for?"
Stache Man: "a good bible"

..... he pauses slighty .....

Stache Man: "well HELL, I guess they all good bibles!"

..... an ever so slight grin overcomes me .....

Me: "Yes, yes they are.... "

He bought a bible, #TeamJim win!