a rare find

Like a good sales person, I always listen to the customers and sales people next door to the fudge shop. I saw this whole family come in and start chatting with the girl next door. I heard her polite, shocked expressions and wondered what was going on. I could hear everyone except a little, older lady and she was the one doing most of the talking. All I knew was that there was a secret. Being a fairly normal person, I wanted to know what the secret was, so I listened more carefully. It was to no avail. I would have to wait until they came into my shop and see if it came up in conversation.

I only had to wait a few minutes and then they came right over to the shop. The family pack was led by the older lady. She marched right up o my counter as I asked her how she was doing. She told me, “I’m doing well today! You wanna know something? I’m 105 years old.” Her daughter quickly interjected, “Mother, you’re not 105 yet. Not until next week. Quit lying to all these young people!” The mother winked at me and leaned up to the counter to get as close to me as she could. She asked me, “You wanna know my secret?” It was obvious that I was going to hear either way and I was curious to know what she would say. “I’m Irish.”  What do you even say to that? I nodded and said “ahhhhh” knowingly.

Come to find out, the woman’s three children with her that day were all in their 80’s. It was incredible! I would have guessed all their ages to be at least 10 years younger than they were. (I considered asking the mother if I could see her ID, but then I decided I better not.) The mother did not even use a cane. She told me that her other secrets were not having a doctor and not being on any medications. She has no fear of sugar problems either---I sold her a bit of chocolate.

In other random news, I’ve been testing tourists again recently to see how well they listen. Three or four out of dozens have passed. The number of people who gratefully eat chocolate that I describe as being made with dead flies, potting soil, or black squirrel droppings is high.

tips for touring

I recently observed some case studies at the shop that were very educational. I have a few tips on what to say and who to bring for any of you that may be touring in the next few months.

1.            If you are touring in an area far from home, chances are that you will have a very different accent than the people you come into contact with. Accents are a beautiful thing; however, if the people you are around have a hard time understanding you, it might not be the best time to joke around too much. Yesterday, a woman who I would guess to be from Korea was in the shop. She was the sweetest customer we had met all day and brought a smile to my face as soon as she walked in the door. She was being waited on by one of the salespersons while I was cleaning tools. I could hear everything she said, but it was very difficult to understand her because of her accent. Towards the end of her sale, I saw her digging in her purse, and then she looked at the girl waiting on her and said, “I not pay you, ok?” She had a big grin on her face and then added, “Maybe I can’t find my money, so I just walk out, ok?” I figured out that she was saying all of this in jest, but the poor girl waiting on her was perplexed. The woman somehow thought it was funny that the girl didn’t understand her, or else she didn’t realize how hard it was to understand what was going on. She kept right on going, packed up all her belongings and got ready to leave. The girl at the counter looked over at me desperately, not quite sure what to do. Our customer finally set her stuff down again, and grinned and said, “Ok, I pay you now. haha!”

2.            Beware of taking hovercraft-parents on vacation with you. Parents and in-laws are a wonderful thing. However, when you are married and have anywhere from 2 to 5 children, that’s usually a good time for parents to realize that their grown children are adults and are capable of speaking for themselves. A family of 6 came into the shop yesterday. It was a man, his wife, and three kids plus the woman’s mother. They looked around for quite some time and then finally made their way to the fudge counter. The mother/grandmother saw the chocolate walnut and had to have a sample. I gave her a piece and she chewed it right up with great conviction. After a contented sigh, she loudly proclaimed that she wanted a slice. “But ONLY one slice.” I got her the slice, boxed it, and completed the sale. Her daughter and her husband came to the counter a minute later and were looking at the flavors. The mother loudly squeezed into the family bubble (between her daughter and her husband) and pointed at the chocolate walnut. She loudly told them, “You have to try that one. It’s the one you want to buy.” Then to me she said, “Package up a slice of that for them. It’s what they are going to buy.” I graciously ignored her and focused on the others who were talking to me about other chocolates. The woman kept interrupting and insisting, “You just need to package up a slice of chocolate walnut. I know it’s what they are going to buy.” I continued to try to focus on the others and politely hint to the woman that I was not in the business of taking orders from her for all my other customers. Finally the couple tried a sample of the chocolate walnut, and they told me that they would take one slice of chocolate walnut. The mother loudly gets right up in my face and told me, “I told you they wanted chocolate walnut. You could have saved us all time if you had listened to me in the first place. She’s MY daughter and I know her better than HE (gesturing to her son-in-law) does!” I wished they had chosen chocolate pecan.

Another case of a helicopter parent happened shortly after the previous one. A family of 5 or 6 plus the wife’s mother came in for fudge tasting. It made me realize that some parents-in-laws don’t like their sons-in-law. (No wonder there are so many crude jokes on this topic. Watching these people, I suddenly understood why all of those got started.) The entire time they were in the shop, the mother-in-law was complaining to her daughter about her stupid husband. He evidently never purchased anything that pleased his mother-in-law. And it wasn’t that he was getting things for her. It was what trinkets he bought for his family. They were all “stupid and a waste of money!” The girl at the fudge counter interrupted her complaints to offer the ladies a sample of fudge. The mother replied, “No, I don’t think we should. If we do, it will tempt her husband (gesturing to her daughter) to buy some and it’s more junk that we don’t need. Besides, he needs to watch what he eats. It’s too many calories.” Looking at this woman, I was a little annoyed with her that she would have the nerve to comment on her son-in-law’s weight when he was a very fit, athletic looking gentleman. She looked like she needed lose 20 pounds so she could go hiking without having a heart attack. Shortly after that, the family packed up and walked out the door. As they left, the woman turned and yelled back over her shoulder with a big smile on her face, “I hope you guys have a wonderful rest of your day!!” Such irony.

3.            English is an interesting language. It has many words from other languages. Some of our spellings are rather unique. However, after dealing with all of that since I started to learn to read, I rarely think about it that much. I heard a most un-intellectual discussion on this topic the other day. Three high school-aged teens came into the shop and were reading all of the Jelly Belly flavors. (The shop has every flavor of Jelly Belly available.) One of the guys got down to the flavor Island Punch. He was looking at it, reading it aloud several times, and finally blurts out, “There’s a misspelling on this flavor tag! The word ‘Island’ is incorrect.” His companions told him how stupid he was for not knowing that the word ‘island’ had a ‘s’ in it. The guy was shocked that he had been wrong—I guess it doesn’t happen often that he’s wrong—and he then walked around the shop repeating the spelling of the word over and over. Finally he came up to the counter and said, “Our language needs words like ‘island’ so it’s not simple—it’s complex!” He walked away before I could think of a response.