Do you still have ?

There are a lot of wonderful items we have sold over the years that are no longer available - it's sad, but eventually dancing coke bottles, mirrors that wolf whistle, singing hamsters or animated bug music boxes disappear from our shelves . . . many items we would still carry if we could.  Once a big commercial company has sold the first hundred thousand of something, they figure if they can't sell another hundred thousand, they should move on to something else.  There is one item we get queries on more than any other, and I just answered an email about that item this morning: the wooden unicycling man who sat on top of a roll of toilet paper. We haven't had one for at least fifteen years and still, every month we get a call. It's amazing what love and loyalty certain items  inspire, and I hate being the bearer of the bad news. On the up side, at least it gives us room to display new items - if we had to keep everything we've ever sold in stock plus keep up with the new,  we would be as big as Walmart by now!

Sending sheep to Cuba

A customer came in today asking for a rooster alarm clock that we sold years ago.  As far as I know, they're no longer available, which she was sad to hear,  (but, at least I remembered what it was;  sometimes no matter how hard I try, I just can't remember the item they're asking for... I thought I would never forget anything but twenty five years of items is a lot to remember.) She was consoled and excited when she saw the singing sheep. Its song: "thank God I'm a country boy."  She is taking it to Cuba to give to a retired priest who lives "in the middle of nowhere" and runs a farm museum showing children the way farms used to be in Cuba.   And, he really enjoys battery operated singing animals.   hmmm .. I bet they didn't have battery operated singing sheep back in the old days.  I love knowing that Joie de Vivre can brighten the day of a retired Cuban priest.

French Toast !

It's a grey and rainy Tuesday and just a bit gloomy but a new arrival from our friends at Fred has put a smile on our face . . .  a new addition to the miracle of toast line . . . French Toast! Can't wait for breakfast tomorrow . . . is there any champagne in the house?

Sunday afternoon

We lost all three phone lines this afternoon, including the one that runs our charge/debit machine. I hauled out the clunky old work horse that manually swipes a credit card... hard to believe that it was once considered a modern device itself. But... it enabled us to take charges until the phones came back on — two hours later, and provided some nostalgia for customers: "I remember those machines!" Cute kid comment of the day — a young girl looking at the shelf of wind up toys said loudly and excitedly — "this must be where Santa got those!!" All adults looked at each other and smiled.

My first post — I'll remember it forever!

Hi... this is Linda, your official Joie blogger. I'm posting to explain here that the blog is right now a work in progress. We got this basic version up a few hours ago and are planning to finish it later this week — like make an actual profile and jazz up our page a bit. But, I'm excited and happy to have a venue for some of my thoughts about twenty five years of Joie... and we will post about new merchandise, and funny customer stories, and random information and retail life these days... all those bloggy things ! See you soon...

testing...

testing... anybody out there? we think we finally have a blog?!