Saturday morning 7:30am - I have been up for 2 hours cuz Mike had to be up at 5:00 to get out and scrape the 2 inches of ice off the van to meet up with a buddy to head down to Zumbrota for an auction. Keep in mind that we live in St. Cloud and we are in the midst of a snow/rain/ice storm and you can skate from our back door to the driveway and from there right out into the street. We have been wanting to go to this auction cuz there looked like LOTS of goodies that we could work on for the February sale. I backed out cuz of the snow/rain/ice storm and the buddy that was going to go with us backed out (due to the fact that he liked living) after driving home last nite from Cannon Falls to Monticello in the snow/rain/ice storm. So Mike found another buddy to go with him - and off they went. He called me a little while ago and said he had met up with Ted and the roads were just fine (of course this was 45 minutes longer than the trip to their meeting place should have taken - even with Mikes driving) and that I shouldn't worry and that they would be just fine. Uh huh, okay, yep. So to get these goodies will cost us a day of time, a full tank of gas, risking life and limb, blood sweat and tears(mine), the time it will take to fix/repair/mend/paint/tighten the goodies he comes home with (Providing they go cheap enough that we can afford them) and the 2 packs of cigarettes, 24 cans of Diet Coke, 3 pounds of chocolate and 10 fingernails that I will go thru today worrying that they will get there and home again on those "just fine" roads. So if I add that all up - if he buys a table for $10.00 I should sell it for $482.00. Hmmmmmmm...................
In all seriousness - we do often go way out of our way to find our treasures, spend days and full tanks of gas and lots of wear and tear on our vehicles, deal with broken fingernails, slivers, scratches, bumps and bruises - and then still have to repair, refinish, reupholster, repaint, re-glue or in some cases pretty much take the item apart and start all over to make it ready to move right into your homes. We try to cover our costs of purchase, repairs, paint, and the portion we have to give to the shop and still have a little bit of profit margin for ourselves (I mean we LOVE what we do - but we have to get a little something out of it!). It is RARE that the cost of our TIME gets built into the items we sell. The goal at SECOND HAND ROSE has always been to have exceptional items, exceptional quality and the best prices - and we work hard to meet all three of those goals on each and every item. So when we say "sorry, no I can't do any better on that" - please don't take it personally. We really mean that we are giving you the best deal that we can. You will see that sometimes pieces get marked down - especially on Sunday!
Well, off to NOT WORRY now for the rest of the day. Does 3 cigarettes, 3 hunks of chocolate, a Diet Coke and a handful of cookies sound like "the breakfast of champions"?? I can probably throw an orange in there to balance it out.
Those of us on your "side of the fence" understand. Unfortunately we don't get paid for the blood sweat and tears...or the dirt under out fingernails....wait...those fingernails are all broken off from trying to scrape a couple spots of undeterminable something off a piece of furniture. The reward is the look of glee on the shopper's face, when they find the item they just can't live without! (And the inside comical part is that they'll never know just what that "stuff" was we broke our fingernails scaping off of it!!! heehee)
ReplyDeleteI hope that Mike returned with enough goodies to justify the harrowing experience.
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