Ask me, ask me, ask me! Ask me; I won’t say “no” – how could I?

Anyone? Anyone get the song reference? :crickets: OK… moving on.

You know what? (“turkeys don’t trot. you know why? they never did try!” THANK YOU PAPA. You’ve been dead for 25 years and I still can’t get that annoying phrase out of my head.)

ANYWAY.

I just wrote about a two-page bitchery on my least favorite question, and at the end realized that (1) it seemed way too personal-attacky (2) it was way too bitchy (3) I felt a lot better after writing it and maybe that was the only point.

SO HERE’S THE MEAT OF IT. I (along with Sharon and Ginger, and thus by default our menfolk) am a small business owner. The economy sucks, I think we all know that. Our plaza is getting some major renovations and driving by we all look like we’re closed. We’re about to get some major intersection reworking, including possibly closing the median crossings into our plaza. My husband is still out of work, and I am afraid every single day of where the next meal and the next mortgage payment is going to come from. I have mini panic attacks three or four times a week thinking about money and the future. And I don’t mean “the future two or three years down the road”, I mean “tomorrow”. My hair has gotten more gray in the last six months than it has in the last six years. I can’t remember the last time you couldn’t bounce an axe off the tightness of my shoulders.

Even if you are my very best friend in the whole wide world (you helped me bury a body and then I gave you a kidney)… please stop asking me on the sales floor in front of customers “how business is going”. You are going to get the vague response of “business is fine” no matter what crappy or joyful day we are having. I simply can not tell if you’re asking me for financial information about the shop (which I’m certainly not going to discuss in front of customers), or if you’re concerned about all the plaza changes (which make me alternately rage or panic), or what, really, is being asked. (“How is business?” … “Business has a slight cough and a fever, I think it might be an ear infection but I’m taking it to the doctor later today”) … Blah blah blah words blah blah yeah I think that I still sound kind of bitchy, or possibly just crazy, so please don’t take it personally if you asked me yesterday how business is going. I’m not mad at you, I’m mad at the situation.

I think this has been on my mind all weekend because of something another yarn store owner said, and I’m going to paraphrase her and add a couple questions of my own:

The questions they should be asking us are:
When was the last time you went out to dinner with your family and didn’t talk about business too much?
When was the last time you went out to dinner with your family?
Even if you do have enough money this month, are you worried? Are you worried about next month?
How many hours a week do you really work?
How many friends have you lost touch with since the shop opened?
How many times have you been grumped at even though it had nothing to do with you but more with something that happened before they even came in your door?
Are you an honorary therapist by now?
When is the last time you had a clean house, clean laundry, mowed lawn?
Do your family and friends remember what you looked like?
Do you get enough sleep?
When was the last time you had a day off when you didn’t do something having to do with work?
Is this both the most draining and the most rewarding thing you’ve ever done, or what?!

I don’t think I’ve ever not talked about business at a dinner with my family; some time in February; yes; yes; 50-60 in the shop (depending on what classes I’m teaching that week and when they are) and at least another 10 at home; almost all of them; at least once a day; five cents, please; HAHAHAHAH before July 2007 (if even then – I totally can’t blame that one on the yarn store); possibly but only because I sometimes post pictures of myself on the blog; HAHAHAHAH no; when I went to Cincinnati when Uncle Joe was in the hospital (some day off, eh?); hells fucking yes.

Ugh. I am apparently wearing CrankyPants today. Please to be forgiving. I need more coffee. And breakfast. And a shower. And coffee. And maybe a hug.