Observations from the mainland

Greetings all and thanks for taking a look!

Yesterday I ventured off island to the mainland to do some shopping and as always, when leaving on the 5:50am boat, I get a little excited to venture into "America". I have to say that Washingtonian's are very courteous drivers. Growing up in So. Cal., and teaching my children to drive there, I learned all the hand signals, mouthing techniques, and general frustrations of driving along with 3 million other people from your same home town. Not so in Washington. We move into the right hand lane as a courtesy to let that a..hole riding your bumper go faster. OK, I know I'm getting older but I now do the speed limit. In So. Cal, if you did 80 in a 55, you were still getting passed and flipped off. I've learned however. I am also on the constant lookout for anyone with a cell phone held up to their ear or someone talking when there is no other apparent occupant in the car. Singing is excluded however, which I occasionally do when I'm alone. And you can always tell who the singers are by tapping the steering wheel or the head bob. Especially when there's a Michael Jackson song on. I've almost been T-boned a few times at a red light by people not paying attention, so I cross carefully. When did we as people think it was OK to do anything other than pay attention behind the wheel? Sorry, my drivers ed teacher left a lasting impression with me when he explained what 5,000 pounds of metal traveling at 50 m.p.h. can do. Does anyone remember the movie "Red Asphalt"? Anyway, back to the Hot Shop.......

I found some lovely items yesterday and did some real damage to the checking account while purchasing items for the store. I think they will sell, but our customers will let me know how they feel about that. I also learned that what we do in our store with customer service matters more than anything else. The stores I went into didn't greet me. They didn't even say hello while adding up my purchases which I find unconscionable. Without customer service, we have no reason to be in business other than to make a friggin' buck. If that were the only reason we were in business, we wouldn't be in it very long. The people are what matter and when you can turn someone on to our business and the passion of our business, that's the reason we are in business. The money will follow. What gets us excited and makes our 70 hour work weeks is when other people get what we do. This is our passion and we love sharing it with each other and the best customers anywhere. This is just the beginning for us and as our kids come on board to help us grow the business, we will continue to maintain that focus. Our kids have grown up working along side us and worked in the retail business for many years. Our plan is to grow and expand this little shop into something that our customers will be proud to say they knew us when. In the meantime, I'm glad to be back on my rock and off the freeways and highways and the only traffic snarl we have is during the school year when we get behind the school bus in the morning or for people slowing down to take a look at Mona the camel. (That's OK, I'd slow down for her any day. She's so beautiful!).

As always, we would love to hear from you.