I’m concerned that a lot of our neighborhood is unoccupied and it looks as if many stores aren’t even here yet and the ones that are, are not making ends meet.
So after a year of living here I visited several stores down the street and asked how they’re doing. I’m not a shopper at all but managed to purchase a few things along the way.
Some told me that a sunny day is a good day. Those are few and far between this June. I found an old-fashioned three-speed girl’s bicycle that’s brown with flowers on it. Even the tires have flowers as the tracks. I’ve no-where to put it but it’s gorgeous and I’d love to take it out on the path every day. No, Zoe, you can’t come until I learn to ride a bike again and you learn to not pull me everywhere!
Everyone was nice and at the last place I told them what I wanted, to learn beadwork for a certain project and asked for a private class to do so. Both people there were on their cell phones constantly, which is irritating to me as a customer. I was told that I’d have to talk to the owner about a class.
The owner finally got off the phone and the clerk asked her about beading. She said: “We make jewelry, not embellishments to fabric.” I asked if I could get a class on beading and she repeated her mantra. If her husband is in charge of “selling” our town to local businesses and residents, his wife could use a class in dealing with customers. I’ll teach it, for free.
These local business owners must not need money, and owning a shop may be just an expensive hobby. That may make one person happy, yippee! But for a customer shopping in these tony digs, locals are treated like dirt. That’s why we don’t shop here unless there is one certain thing (an esoteric math puzzle from the toy store) we need. I thought about helping them, but have definitely changed my mind.
You know that educational mantra, “publish or perish,” and I say be customer-friendly and sell something, lest you perish. These people don’t seem to care. They do jewelry. Dee
ps The good part is that I got a Beatles’ DVD “All Together Now” and “clapton unplugged” both on sale from a place that no longer honors the Local Card, which started this rant.
