Well, West Texas Shaving Company made its debut today -- and its first sales! I'm literally bubbling over, to employ a cliche, with excitement over that. Well, I should say "lathering over," shouldn't I? I'd meant to write more about all of it, but oddly, I find that I'd rather not. Not even sure why that is, except that I started to write about it and got all philosophical and theoretical -- without being original, so it was boring.
Just last night I was reading Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe classic The High Window, and one sentence leaped out at me: "Seen at close quarters his face seemed young and pink and plump and the blond beard on his chin was very carelessly shaved." I see a lot of carelessly shaved men myself, some of them this morning.
I spent the morning behind a vendor's table at a Christmas bazaar and found -- though I'm the salesman, not the artisan -- that I enjoyed the "artisan-y" side of it far more than I expected to: chatting with other vendors, looking at their stuff, and urging potential customers to sniff my samples (a bay rum and a lavender mint, both crafted by Alexandra, and lathered and tested by yours truly). No forced humor about putting my neck on the line, either. I'm way too cool for that.
And I was a complete boob at writing up the receipts, getting the sales tax right, and all that end of it. Every time. Except for counting and returning change to customers, 'cause I did okay at that. But my displays looked good, and I loved answering questions about shaving soaps (and our shaving soaps!), safety razors, mugs and brushes...it was great. We don't have the inventory to do a huge Christmas business, but we're looking forward to the Valentine's Day gift market.
We didn't have our lime or sandalwood soaps on offer today. Our creams, unfortunately, aren't ready for prime time. And we have no internet presence (although we do have an email address and a domain name). But people paid money for our stuff. I can't tell you how much pride I feel over that.
(I would tell you, but I can't find the right words. I don't even know how to find the right words.)
Posted by Craig Ceely at December 3, 2006 10:17 PM