My neighbor described it as a desperate act. An act forced upon dealers whose need for sales outweighed any other factors. With this, I envisioned a rather gloomy scene of empty show aisles, dealers trolling booths looking for steals for which they could offset payment and the few potential customers that might be there would be saying over and over, "I'll think about it...".
But that was not to be the case. Instead it was a vibrant show. With happy dealers. And a buying public out in full force. While it wasn't the best show of my career thus far, it exceeded my expectations! The Thursday before the show set up was spent picking up the rental truck (and a rather large piece of furniture that I will tell you about a little later) and my merchandise. I drove to Midtown from the Bronx and arrived at Center 44 with plenty of time to box up the smalls and carry out the furniture. Well, plenty of time is relative as I arrived at 3pm and the Center closes at 5pm... It went off without a hitch and I was loaded and ready by closing time. The drive back home from Center 44 was smooth even being on I-95 at rush hour. Good omens all around. After a nice dinner it was lights out early as I had to be up by 3:30am in order to drive to the city and get in line for set up. At 5:30am the line for set up was already long and I took this as another good omen. Dealers were excited to be at the show early and to unload first thing. I was unloaded and parked by 9am. And I had a splinter...
Let's back track to the day before in the Bronx when I picked up the rental truck. The owner asked me if I would take a rather large armoire to the show and offer it for sale. I thought to myself, that the more merchandise in the booth the better and I said that I would take it. The ex-football player who works there said that it is 'light when it's on the dolly' and told me that I should have no problems moving it. Feeling like Wonder Woman, I concurred. For those of you who know me, you know what I mean. The armoire was the last piece to come off the truck. As I pulled it out of the truck with my hand truck lined up on the ground, my plan was to gently slide it on to the hand truck... Luckily two dealers seeing this plan unfold, were kind enough to prevent me from being smushed by the humongous armoire.
Okay, now it's mobile and I'm pushing it into my booth. Uprighting the armoire went well enough until I got a tiny splinter in my index finger. I didn't think much of it and I went about setting up my booth getting ready for the weekend customers. After a long day, and a sore finger, I went home feeling pumped for the weekend. Saturday and Sunday were busy days full of sales. One after another, piece by piece, I was happy to sell many large and heavy pieces of furniture. Even though I did need the rental truck for the way home, my load out was super fast. Except for the armoire. Yes, it did not sell and I had to get it back onto the truck. Hiring a couple porters was the plan and the armoire slid happily back into place. But my finger still hurt and was now kind of red.
The next day was Monday and I unloaded the few pieces that did not sell and drove the truck back to the Bronx. After a little price haggling due to the splinter in my finger, we settled up and I went home. My finger was feeling worse and was now really swollen. Reluctantly, I called my Dad who has had his fair share of splinters and I described the situation. After a bit of ribbing, he became serious and wanted to make sure that it was not too infected. It was at this point in the conversation that he reminded me, "No good deed goes unpunished." We had a good laugh and I felt inspired to do a little finger surgery... It took a few more days, but the splinter finally saw its way out of my finger.
So, what does all this mean? That you always have to believe in what you're doing and stay positive because you never know what may come. And also, to be cautious about the favors that you do because they might wind up giving you more than you bargained for.
