The Site

Two years ago, after paying off all of my debt and feeling incredibly free and bold, I decided to start an on-line maternity store. (Put the money in the bank instead of spend it? Are you crazy???) In my big-picture plan, I thought I could start this while working my day job since the Internet is on at all hours of the day, and then in a few years (or year in my plan), make enough to quit my day job to do it full-time. Then, when I was ready to have kids, I’d have a flexible job where I could have my kids around. (I was realistic enough to realize I would still most likely need a nanny to help, but in my mind, I was making enough to pay her, too.)

Anyway, without going into the minutia of starting the business, hiring web designers, getting decent photographs, dealing with a back-end that didn’t work right and again, the web designers who couldn’t fix it, I’ll let you know it fell flat. The inventory is languishing in the office closet (it’s a large closet) waiting for me to raid it for this pregnancy and to sell of the rest of it.

It’s kind of become like a large tumor I pretend I don’t have. “What? That thing? Oh, it’s nothing. It’ll take care of itself.” Or so I hope. I keep dreaming of coming home to an empty closet and a full bank account. Often, I forget all about it until either Pete asks me what I am going to do with it (“Stop asking me! I’ll figure it out!”) or miraculously, someone orders something.

It’s so bad I don’t even check the business email very often, but last week I did, and lo and behold! Someone made it through my unencrypted (it expired) check-out! New hope dawned! I sold a shirt! Perhaps I will revive the shop and unload this stuff at discount prices! Hallalujah! Of course, in between wanting to barf and sleep, I kept forgetting to pack her shirt. So, this morning, I finally sat down to pack up her shirt and send it off with heartfelt thanks. But the size of the shirt she ordered WAS ALREADY SOLD! Yes, I sell things to my friends straight out of the closet (there’s an idea – sell out of the trunk of my car) and I don’t always update the inventory on the site. (Well, I did, but that was on the NEW site that we had rebuilt, but no one knows exists.)

I’m starting to feel like I am always supposed to have an albatross. First, the credit card debt that I did a fine job of accruing, and now, the maternity inventory that I also did a fine job of accruing. I mean, finally, someone wanted to buy something! How, oh cruel world, can this woman want the same white t-shirt as my friend in small?! Where are the big people I keep reading about? Why does everyone want a small???

Frustration is an understatement.