Most people would be reluctant to spend sums of money if they didn’t have the cash, credit-line or, at least, a reliable income stream.  I admire that kind of prudence, myself, but don’t really subscribe to it.  Ya know?  I sorta figure that, “If you spend it, it will come”. (quoted from W.P. Kinsella’s nér-do-well brother-in-law).  And so I have been shopping.

As mentioned in the previous post, the Q-hut needs tools.  There are several ways to get tools but I hope we will simply be given them.  It is so much easier, don’t you think?  And I hate shopping.  Failing being gifted with tools (which can be read both ways, in my case), I hope we get them cheap.  Free is good.  Delivered Free is even better.  Set-up is not a problem.

“I’ll have my peeps set the tools up”.

I consider getting a generous grant being gifted.  I consider a miserly grant being gifted as well since I may be able to then buy the tools cheap.  Either way, somebody has to give it up for the betterment of the larger community and, since we are the larger community, my contribution is to go shopping for someone to ‘give it up‘.

That was THE PLAN such as it was.

I started with ‘shopping’ the government but, not unlike shopping in the conventional sense, my eyes quickly glazed over, I got bored and restless and then irritated and edgy.  I verged on mania.  I just want it to be over.  “OH!  Please GOD!  Just let it be over!” 

That is the all-too common refrain expressing my usual feelings after just twenty minutes into just a Save-ON grocery shop.  Put me in a shopping mall for an hour or more and I am literally certifiable.  I swear; I believe in some kind of gun control only for the reasons evident posed by shopping malls, department stores and places with long line-ups and stupidly-slow cashiers.

Mall security really should profile older white males.  They are truly the most likely security risk.  If you ever see a lone 60 year-old male wearing a long overcoat in a shopping mall RUN – do not walk – for the nearest exit.  Just saying.

Dealing with government makes shopping at Xmas with your wife for the entire family (both sides) a golf vacation in Bermuda by comparison.  I simply could not pack enough ammunition if I was to spend too long in dealing with government.  And one hour is too long.  Grant-getting is like prostrating yourself for years along dirt tracks covered in broken glass as you completed your suffering pilgrimage to Mecca.  And being, at the same time, a non-believer!

“Oh God!  Save me from this torture.  Please!  I choose waterboarding instead. With acid!”

Well, you get my drift.  I am not a fan of procurement.

Still, a man has to do what a man has to do………….eh?

So, I shopped.  But I shopped like a man!  Online.  Found an advert for a complete woodworking shop.  It was for sale due to the passing of the gentleman who, with his wife, had employed it for years in the making of wooden toys.  It is a small shop by business standards but a hugely comprehensive one in woodworking scope.  This couple knew their stuff.  It is not just the ‘tools’, it is product, inventory, accounts, goodwill and lessons in doing things.   It is in effect, a business – something much greater than just the sum of it’s parts.

Even better than that: it is one that I like to think of as ‘bite-sized’.  Our little community just may be able to ‘chew’ this.

We bought it.

To be fair, it was as much a gift as it was a purchase.  More a gift, actually.  The lady is very nice and wanted, ideally, to sell the shop as an operating business because she still has roots and friends as a result of years of making toys.  She’d like to see the shop continue to make toys.  That is the kind of business that generates goodwill and they achieved that over a considerable time.  She doesn’t want to lose that.

Secondly, she wanted the business to go to a small isolated community if possible.  She and her husband knew small communities and they knew that there was little in the way of cash generators in places like ours.  They, too, envisioned what we did.  We just had to ‘hook up’.  And we did.

So, she gave us a deal that worked for us.  We can partially pay her from the proceeds.  And she knows that there may not be much so we agreed to a bare minimum price (which I still don’t have) and we’ll make a best-efforts at adding to it.  I sincerely hope that we can pay her as promised.  But she knows the goofballs we are.  H was there, after all.  He accompanied me.

This idea still has to ‘get it’s legs’.  But everyone is optimistic and everyone has their eyes open.  It has a chance.

I had forgotten to take my camera when we visited the shop.  As a consequence, I was wondering how I could convey the idea to those who hadn’t yet been party to much of what I had been doing.  As we were leaving, I asked if she would mind giving us a few already-made toys for ‘show and tell’.  I thought that, maybe, having a bit of ‘product’ would suffice for not having a list of inventory and pictures.

Some things work out better by accident.

Plot 2.  Sally, as you know, was hosting book club on Sunday and 23 women attended.  I had three toys on display.  They were a hit!  Everyone, it was reported (as I am not allowed in book club due to my having ‘junque’), liked them and became supportive if not enthused with the idea of the Q-hut being so equipped.  If you have book club onside, you have the community onside.  They are only 10% of the areas population but boo kclub is the dog, the rest of us are tails.

This is a plan that is coming together.  I will keep you informed of our progress as we ‘go forward‘ but you may to wait until the ‘end of the day’ and after, of course, the ‘re-org’ and subsequent review process to ensure our mandate is being fulfilled.