- 7/4/2007 11:30:00 PMFireworks - Day 13Neil H. stayed over last night. He, James and I work up around 8:00 AM. I went in and got some coffee and we sat around trying to recover from yesterday's feeding frenzy in the rain. Around 9:15 (as usual) a customer drove up and asked if we were open for business. All the sides of the tent were down with only a flap pulled back to let some fresh air in. We were just sitting there in lawn chairs, hair all messy with bed-head, our cots and air mattress still up, no cash in the register, drinking coffee... I said, "sure, come on in". They looked around and left with out buying anything. I think we might have scared them away.
We decided to make the tent look like we were open and raised the sides. My dad called to wish me a happy birthday. He said he was very proud of me and what I was doing. There is a special place in my heart for comments like that. I know he means it and it is worth more than gold to me.
From this point on, customers came in not stop and steady. Peggy and Grandma did their best to make the stock appear full but there came a point where there just was not enough left to do that. We decided to take down some tables and pull the back tables forward. By noon, the traffic had slowed down some. People kept coming in asking for "something for the kids" - sparklers, snakes, popits, smoke bombs. They were all gone. Many customers came in and looked around like someone at a rummage sale that was heavily picked over. All of the good stuff was gone.
I was ready to call it quits, pack up and go home. We had just crossed over the $15,000 mark which was my goal. Peggy was not ready to quit. She kept condensing product and making it look as full as possible. More tables came down, more people came, more product disappeared. By 5:00 PM, we had taken down 2/3 of the tables in the tent and what remained looked bare. People kept coming asking for sparklers.
WalMart closed at 8:00 PM and that was going to be our unofficial close as well. By the time it came, there was almost nothing left. Mike kept selling as hard as he could. I think he has tried and failed in his attempt to sell "The Big One" more than any of us. As we boxed up product, he kept selling. Customers came in and he would say, "this is the last family pack we have". It is not really a family pack, but rather a $200 mega pack. Regardless, it was the only combo item we had. Finally when everything was boxed up, one last customer came in. Mike, not ready to call it quits, brought them over to the Big One and unboxed it. The tent got very quiet as Mike began his sales pitch. We all prayed for it to sell, "Come on. Come ON! Lord please finish in a mighty way what you started."..... It didn't sell. I'm ok with that. The small amount of product that we have to return will easily fit into our mini-van.
This has been a weird and wild two weeks. Stay tuned for the final totals
