Monday Rambles

Well, Black Friday was a mixed bag, boothwise.  Had a really good day at YesterNook, where I put out a ton of vintage Xmas AnnaLee dolls, but only a so-so day at Peddler's Mall.  It wasn't a bad day there, per se.  It was just a normal day.  I typically have a good BF there, so I was a little bummed about that, especially since I spent most of Wednesday there re-working the space and getting ready.  However, Saturday redeemed everything with 81 dollars in total sales there, followed by Sunday with 84!  Woo hoo!  Let the holiday shopping begin!

I'm a little concerned that few of my gift idea items are selling, but I think my set up may be to blame.  It's way too crowded.  I've got a new idea I want to try out to alleviate some of that.  Plus, I've not done my Craigslist ad yet.  On the other hand, I've sold out of all my wrapping paper and all my Disney Christmas items.

I had a kind of disturbing experience while shopping on BF.  I was in a thrift that was doing a half-off sale and had a cart loaded with stuff.  The aisles at this thrift are very narrow, and there is no room to get a cart through the clothing racks, which have bins on top with merch in them.  I left my cart at the end of a rack and was looking at stuff in the bins, when I hear a "clank" from my cart.  I turned around, and there's some woman digging through my cart!

Now, there's only like eight people in the shop, so it's pretty obvious who has carts and who doesn't.  I shout at her to get out of my cart and she grunts at me:  "There's carts all over the store.  I didn't know."  Like hell she didn't.  When I came in the store she was digging through the large donation bin at the front of the store, and it has a LARGE sign on it that says the items in that bin are not yet for sale.  She knew exactly what she was doing!

She managed to snag some stuff out of my cart before I caught her.  I saw one of the items sitting on a shelf later.  She didn't want it because she had chipped it while rummaging around in my cart.  She also chipped something else in the cart that I really wanted to buy.  The nerve of some people.  Seriously, I would never do something like that.

Later on, we went to Half-Price Books for their sale.  I managed to get all of my holiday gifts there, so that worked out nicely.  My sister-in-law and I have similar tastes in mysteries, so buying for her is always fun.  Now that my niece is totally a teen-ager, she's a bit more of a challenge.  I also found several vintage board games at one of them for a buck a throw.

My usual plan of action there is to load my cart up with possibilities and then sit down somewhere and sort through them to decide what to buy.  Since they frequently only have one copy of many of the things I am interested in, I tend to grab it before it's gone and then make the actual buying decision later.

So, I loaded up my cart and found an empty chair to sit in and started going through my choices.  It usually takes me a little while, since I like to thumb through things, read a few passages, etc.  I'm in the middle of this process, when a woman pops up in front of me and demands to know where the stuff that was in the chair is.  I tell her that the chair was empty when I sat down.  She tells me that there was a vest and two books there.  I repeat that the chair was empty.  She then reaches for my jacket, which is in my cart, and starts to pick it up to look under it.  Excuse me?

Right at the point where I'm about to tell her to get her hands off my stuff, a staff person intervenes and tells her that her stuff is at one of the registers.  They thought someone had forgotten it, because it had been laying unattended in  the chair for over half an hour!  Sheesh!

Basically, twice in one day, I had my shopping cart violated by odd women.  I hope that's not an omen for something.

This is going to be a busy, busy week.  New group starts at work.  Out of town meeting on Friday.  Booths to stock.  Posts to write.  Cards to scan.  Books to read.  Junk to price.  Lots to do.  My desk has become an out of control mound.  I cannot find my camera, which I need to finish a couple of posts and also for some Craigslist postings.  Too much to do!

 Guess I'd better get on with it, huh?