Branding

It's working.

Sigh.

It's been a low week for me with my 17-year-old cat seemingly near death a few days ago, with a mild but slightly frightening flare-up of my Multiple Sclerosis, with general discombobulation that resulted in me locking my keys in my car and, on a separate occasion, locking my phone in my car and misplacing my keys in the most random place (After four hours of house cleaning they turned up in a bag that belongs to my roommate. They were not dropped or put in it but just sort of got skooched into the remote and random location during a string of set downs and pick ups that occurred throughout Tuesday evening on a bench by the front door).

Everything seemed broken this morning. I doubted I would be able to sell anything this week. I felt depressed and somewhat beaten. Not ready to give up, mind you; as many of you know, I was raised by Lion's fans. I don't give up -- not ever. I refuse to give up. I'm just ornery and hopeful that way. It works for me. But I felt like jumping back into bed until Monday, pulling my freshly-laundered quilt up to my neck and reading something -- maybe even something a bit sordid, like a couple dozen paper-back romance novels or something, anything to deliver me from my feelings of uselessness and self pity.

But it must become very dark before we see the stars. Somebody very wise said that first, and much more eloquently than I just did. But I can't remember who or where and I suppose it doesn't matter.

What matters is that today is the day that I decided to keep walking through doors even though I didn't feel the teeniest bit like a person who had a cup that was even a third full.

But I walked anyway. And it only took one door to restore me to happiness.

The business owner was busy. I sat and chatted with the staff for a minute. We talked about travel, newspapers, pets, politics.

I set a date with the business owner to come back and nail down the enrollment details (that date is Monday). And then I noticed I'd locked my keys in my car for the second time this week.

Eye Yie Yie!!!

I walked back into the store. A man who is apparently somehow related to the business owner (who just minutes before told me wonderful stories about his travels in China and Tahiti) offered to take me to the police station or to a garage to see if we could find someone to unlock my car for free. He took a look at it and figured out he couldn't do it himself. I had the grace to take him up on his offer. It was so obvious he just wanted to help. He wanted to be kind and useful. As I suspected, there were no free offers to get my keys out. A State Police Sergeant called a towing company and they met me at my car about twenty minutes later.

Meanwhile I sat inside the business with the owner, a staff person and this man who is seemingly a relative of some sort, possibly not a husband, since the relationship wasn't stated, perhaps a brother.

It was revealed to me then that three other people from the company I work for had been in to try to earn this new business owner's business. The last time I had stopped in, there had only been two in addition to me and the business owner told me then that I had been chosen -- largely as a result of my effectively written note congratulating her on her soon-to-happen grand opening.

She lifted her leg in the air as if she were playing kickball after telling me about the others who had come in.

"That's it." She said. "I told them we're doing business with Patty. If anymore of them come in here, I'm gonna kick them out of here."

Yay! This is what we call branding in the sales business. When there are hundreds of people who sell your product you have to stand out. You can't be like plain ketchup. You've gotta be Heinz or Hunts. Otherwise, you'll never make it.

She brought her foot back down to the floor.

"I told them Patty's our girl."