Crafters Crowd

I helped Mom with the Harrisburg Christmas Craft Show last week.  Meanwhile I missed my children.  I'd sit at the kitchen table at 7am and try to figure out if I ran up to see them how long I could be there. There being Nate's parents.  They are good babysitters.  Probably spoiled the children to death.  One evening Nate took me out to dinner when I got home. Some classy place where we got creme brulee for dessert. The waitress was a dream come true the perfect mix of fun and kind. Mom had a huge disaster with Verizon getting her phone line hooked up for the credit card machine.  Ever use a knuckle buster to put credit cards through?  Pain in patoony. I'd say, "and your total is ten dollars even" and they'd whip out their American Express and I was thinking, "nooooooo" of course this feeling passed as it really was every time.  And I totally get it, I never carry cash either and when I do I'm saving it for a non credit kind of store.  So finally on Friday morning Nate left extra early to climbed on a ladder at the Farm Show while I was at home praying he'd not fall on top of some stand full of glass ornaments.  Also praying that we'd finally have a phone line. His trip was in vain and they never left him get on the ladder. 
Most of the customers were very nice.  I had one lady however, she had her slate personalized, Mom put her house number on it.  So she's telling me how she'll be back for it and I asked her to pay for it before she left.  It is our system... if they don't pay we will forget that they didn't.  Besides when they come back we are busy w/ new customers and can't be knuckle busting their card through.  So... she just gave me such a hard time about paying first, "The lady with the apron didn't tell me I have to pay now"  I made her pay but she nearly had me in tears.  Then there was the lady that told Yvonne and I how one time when she came back to pick up her order she nearly gagged she hated the personalization that much.  So I'm reassuring her that if she does not like it we can wipe it off and start over.  She was really high maintenance and I didn't want her to stress Mother dear out so I was like, "hang around while she writes your name on it but do not say anything to the artist to make her nervous"  so Mom has no idea that this lady was over the top and the lady is standing right in front of her little personalization stand looking the other way but I can see that she's watching mom out of the corner of her eye.  So Mom finishes it and I was like, "show it to her" lady approves it and Yvonne and I breathed a huge sigh of relief.  Chances are high that she was from New Jersey. Working with people, got to love it.
Nate's been having struggles of his own lately.  Service call to a home where the smoke detectors were beeping in the night.  They had totally removed the smoke detector in their bedroom and she's pointing to the wiring that's left hanging from the ceiling telling Nate that it's still beeping.  Those are the days he comes home shaking his head.