A Riddle

"What is the difference between a pussy cat and a sentence?" A charming older woman asked me this question the other day. We were alone in the store and she had just wandered in. I had to admit that I didn't know. "Well," she told me, "A sentence has pauses at the end of its clauses - and a pussycat has clawses at the end of its pawses!" That made me smile; I love word play, and I also was taken with the use of the old fashioned "pussycat", a word rarely heard these days outside of "The Owl and the Pussycat." She then continued her way around the store, eventually coming back up to purchase a book and a flower pen. Just before she left, I thanked her for the riddle, saying I would be sure to remember it. She smiled, took her bag, looked at me, said "Meow!" and left. Delightful!

Kids

We were lucky enough to overhear two great comments here at Joie in the last few days. The first, from a young boy - probably five or six - killing time while his mother chose a gift for a friend. He was looking through a glitter wand kaleidoscope - the kind where the glitter floats down through liquid and forms a kaleidoscopic image. "It's like a party!" he excitedly said, and I told his mom that I just might have to use his quote. Then this morning three teenagers were in, just looking around at everything (it's school vacation week) and having fun with our stock and with each other. Sometimes three teenagers can seem like about a dozen people - they get very excitable and crazy around each other, all in good fun, but these three were very easy to take. One of the girls looked at a miniature coffee creamer we have, and said "I love this even more than I love myself!" Then later today, a mom was in with her two daughters and each one purchased something with her own money - something we consider a compliment of the highest order! Anyway, bearing in mind the recent awful events in Boston, it's nice to have a little something on the lighter side to share with you blog readers. Happily, having kids around makes it very difficult to concentrate solely on the darker side of life.

Just Saying

So, the phone rang at 9:30 this morning. I picked it up at my desk in the back office. "Hello, I know you open at 10," a man's voice began. "But - if I happened to be standing outside your door, and if I happened to know exactly what I wanted . . . . " "Are you standing outside our door?" I asked. "Yes." "Of course I'll open," I said - and 5 minutes later, he was happily on his way with a Newton's Cradle for his elementary school class. One minute to open the door, one minute for me to find out what he wanted and go get it, one minute for him to buy it - and two minutes for us to talk about what a cool thing a Newton's Cradles is. Just want to say - I don't think he would have had the same luck at Target . . . . or Walmart . . . or a department store . . . or even the local mall. It's nice to be able to be flexible - and to say yes instead of no!

The Way It Always Is

A few days after Easter, we look at our Easter stock section in the back of the store to see what is left over. There's always a few things that we think we'll sell a lot of and don't - and sometimes they are quite wonderful things. Of course wind up rabbits and chicks and a great deal of springy and chickeny related merchandise just goes right back into our year round stock, because we sell chicken bags and rabbit puppets all year long, same for egg shaped ice cube molds and pinwheels and butterfly bubbles. However, if something says "Happy Easter" or is too overtly Easter related, we pack it up and put it away until next year. (Sad thing about that Easter chocolate that won't last a year without going bad - we are forced to eat it!) Anyway, we packed it all up yesterday, including the 50 cent chenille chicks, and we put it as high up and out of the way as we could, knowing that we wouldn't be needing it for awhile. And this morning, a woman came in, and asked for - chenille chicks. It's just a law of the retail universe - pack it up and put it in a hard to access place - and someone will really really want one!