2006-09-25
The difference between revenue and profit
Sorry for the lack of updates everyone, but this one will be a doozy, I promise.
So since last September roomie and I have been storing a bunch of stuff in my parent's garage, about an hour away from our apartment. We intended to have a garage sale last spring but were rained out so we postponed until the Saturday that just passed.
I was supposed to meet roomie at the train station at 430. I had class until 230 and roomie worked until 4. Because apparently I can't read or figure out train schedules, I thought there was a train every half hour between 4 and 6, so whenever we both ended up there (and after we had eaten our cinnebon) we would be good to go. Well, I got out of class early because one of the other groups almost ended up in a ufc style knock-down-drag-out fisticuffs fight so I ended up at the station around 3. Called roomie's cellphone to leave a message but it turned out that she had punked out of work super early so she hightailed it on down to the station.
We got on a bus (no trains) with a guy with whom I went to middle school but didn't really want to talk to. Apparently he didn't recognize me. So we get in to town and get a taxi to my place (my parents were at the cottage for the weekend). We grab the car keys and head out to try and satisfy roomie's nanimo bar cravings. After about 20 minutes of driving we get her the bars and have a big apathetic discussion about dinner. We end up at a pizza hut. It is super busy and we are mesmerized by the small girl working the cut and package station. But we decide that the lack of service is going to annoy us so we bail. We then try to go to B0ston pizza, sign up to wait 15 minutes to get a table (while there were 3 girls just kind of chilling at the host stand) but decide that it's going to bother us to eat there too so we bail. I swear, we aren�t really that picky. We end up at Harvys where roomie gets dinner and I get back up dinner incase the sub place I want to go isn't open.
Turns out it is, so I get a chicken sub. yummmmmmy.
We watch Mystic Pizza which is a girlie teen angst Julia Roberts movie from the 80s and I go to sleep by 1030.
Wake up Saturday at 6 to start putting stuff out for the garage sale. We can't find a bunch of stuff of roomie's so we deduce that it has already been given away ,which she is surprisingly ok with.
Out merchandise ends up being mostly books. It is overcast and the rain is kind of just hanging in the air. Not a great day for a garage sale, but we stick it out. Roomie is sick with a cold and totally bundled up under a duvet and multiple jackets while I'm in a t-shirt and shorts.
The garage sale was supposed to start at 8. By 9 I made her a deal, if no one came up the driveway by 930 we could bail. Well, besides people who knew me and only stopped by because I haven�t been home in basically 5 years one lady bought one book. Sorry, that might have gotten lost in all the other text. ONE LADY bought ONE BOOK. Revenue total...$2. No profit (bus tickets times 4 plus 2 taxi rides totaled about 60$).
Around 930 it started raining, actually raining, and roomie was looking like a sanatorium patient so we bailed. Packed everything in to plastic bags and put it in my dad's station wagon, intending to find either a dumpster or donation box to put it in. Of course, as soon as we had the wagon loaded up, the rain stopped and the weather cleared.
Called the parents to let them know that we bailed and my lovely mother volunteered my dad to find somewhere to drop the stuff off if we would take down the signs around the neighborhood. I balked initially until I found out there were only 8 signs. Not a problem. Bargain of the century.
so we took down the signs and then found out that there was a bus in about 25 minutes so we had to kick it in to high gear to get the rock out of there. I forgot to steal an alarm clock with illuminated numbers, a deficit which has been severely affecting my sleep patterns of late.
So we call a cab and hop on a bus back to the big city.
On the bus ride, as I read an old issue of Hello! over roomie's shoulder we decide that I need to run a few errands on the way home, but roomie is going to go straight home and try and feel better.
So I go to the bank and then go to the little super market to try and get roomie cranberry juice but they don't have any. I then go to the more expensive market from whence she wants a particular kind of soup but doesn't know what kind so I call her from in front of the soup selection and discover that they have some kind of Moroccan chic pea soup that she has scoured the city for and has been told has been discontinued. So I buy her 3 jars of it (heavy, glass jars) and a carton of imitation juice (which apparently tasted like freezies). So I lug all of the soup in my already full backpack (remember, I came straight from school on Friday) over to starbucks as I practice ordering her "tall, extra-hot, no whip pumpkin spice late". And then, inevitably, I don't have enough money in my pocket and have to fish my wallet out from under the soup and in the middle of it all my dad called from resort X to confirm that he was getting the right coat that I left there.
I was seriously stressed and disheveled.
Made it back to the apartment in one piece and without breaking the soup, which I considered a momentous achievement.
My pay check and July commission cheque come out to somewhere in the neighborhood of $1700, so that is exciting. I've also applied to work at the hotel just down the street from us where roomie insists that all of the front desk staff look 12, so that bodes well for me too.
moi at 8:47 a.m.
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