One of our customers has a limestone fountain ( 30 – 40) years old that was broken in three pieces.  She had purchased it on a trip to Florence (Italy, not Alabama as I thought at first) and the cost to replace the bowl was prohibitive. I don’t remember if it was hit by a tree or frozen.  She asked me if I could find someone to fix it.  I asked everybody I could think of but they all just sort of smiled and slowly shook their head no,  in a way that just screamed “ARE YOU STUPID.  THAT CANT BE FIXED.”  Not a good sign.

There were several problems:

1.  Nobody was willing to try to fix it since a good long term result was doubtful.

2.  The fountain was about 4 feet in diameter and made of carved limestone.  It was heavy.  The limestone was also soft. Pins and anchors would tend to pull out.

3.  The fountain sat in the center of a 12 ft circular pond that was about 4 feet deep.

So I decided I would try to fix it.  Smart.

Note to Mr. Mountain Brook Business license inspector:  This was done as a fun project to help a nice customer.   No costs of material, fees, delivery  or labor were charged.   

Mr Business license inspector and I have met before.

So anyway I decided to fix this fountain. 

I guess at this point it becomes obvious why I am not in the handyman business.  I had great intentions.  I went and got the broken fountain pieces to test glues.  I ordered a book on working with stones.  Then I put the pieces of the fountain in the back room of the store for a year.  I thought about it from time to time.  Especially in the middle of the night as I sat bolt upright thinking of all the things I had put off.  Fortunately, she was very patient. 

Finally, when I got the courage to face her again I decided to get serious about this project.  I called one of the local stone companies and convinced the owner to tell me how he would fix it if he were dumb enough to try.  He suggested this super duper high strength epoxy made especially for bonding limestone.  It cost $50.00 a quart.  I thought hmm, this must be some good stuff.  So I ordered it. 

When it came in,  I decided to do a trial run with the pieces before we went to the actual site.  I very carefully mixed in the hardener and applied it, clamped the pieces together and waited.  When I took them apart they immediately separated leaving a thin sheet of the epoxy glue.  Not so Good.  “Moisture”, said the manufacturer.  Not a complete impossibility since it had been under water for forty years. 

So I was back at square one.  I am really beginning to worry.  All of my ideas have failed and even though the customer was patient there is a little edge to her voice now when she calls to see, “how it’s coming.”

What am I going to do.  I have to glue 3 heavy things together that have been soaked in water.  That is when I looked at the shelf of Gorilla Glue in the paint department.  I hopefully read the instructions.  Stone okay. Moisture not a problem.  Sounds good.  But could a 5 dollar bottle of glue really fix this fountain when my high tech special order epoxy failed.  I decided one way or the other I was going to glue that thing together.  It might last a minute or a day but I was going to get it done.

The first problem was how to get to the fountain.  I got a 2×12 pressure treated board 15 feet long from one of my buddies with a lumber yard.  We attached two 2×4 peices to the bottom of it for support.  This made a good walkboard. We still were pretty tight but at least we could get to the fountain without getting wet. 

The next problem was how to clamp the pieces together once we applied the glue.  The outside of the bowl was irregular and I couldn’t think of anything to use to hold it in place.  We finally decided to use a ratcheting strap placed around the center of the fountain to pull everything together. We applied the glue, tightened the clamp and stood back.  Everything was holding.

The only thing I didn’t take into account was the fact that Gorilla Glue expands as it dries.  I should have brought plastic sheeting to put under the fountain but I didn’t.  We got a few drops in the pond.  If you look to the left of the Lilly Pads you can see a film on top of the water.  I got a spoon and dipped out as much as I could while she was distracted.  To my knowlege no plants or fish were affected. 

So I left with high hopes that everything would hold.  The next few days I would anxiously call to see if everything was still together.  We did this late last summer and so far it is still holding. 

So if you have a tough gluing job I can recommend Gorilla Glue.

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This year there are around 45 items in the sale.  We had to order these things back in the mid summer. What we order then is it.  We usually can’t get anymore.   It is always such a gamble.  Predicting six months in advance what the hot items are going to be is a guess at best.  I am not sure it is even an educated guess.  I wish that we could order enough of each item so that no matter what the demand is we would never run out.  That just isn’t possible.  One year we had a portable DVD player in the sale.  What should we do?  Would people come to a hardware store for electronics?  We decided to gamble.  We ordered around a hundred I think.  They were gone by noon.  The gamble paid off.  You see, on sale items we rarely make anything.  Maybe pennies.  So if I order 100 items that cost around $100 I have invested $10,000.  Now not all of the things on sale cost that much but it is easy to see that we could risk a serious amount of money.  The next year we had MP3 players in the sale.  I thought that since the DVD players had done well the MP3s would too.  WRONG.  We had dozens left over.  That was a big loser. I think we ended up losing around $5000 on them.  We just can’t do that on 45 items. In a small business like ours it doesn’t take many missteps to be fatal.

The Ace Hardware customer service department says that the vast number of customer complaints they get are about out of stock sale items.  We are at heart retailers who want more than anything to have the products the customers want.  It pains us to be out of something.  We just can’t afford  the risk to have huge quantities of everything. So on Friday when you brave the crowds realize that we are as frustrated as you with out of stocks.  If we run out of things we will do our best to get more if possible and we sincerely regret it when we can’t. 

This doesn’t apply just to us.  It is a problem for the big stores too.  I just hate to do anything that disappoints our customers and I am afraid that it is inevitable that is what happens during these sales.  I also have nightmare remembrances of a fight at one of the local discount stores over a television that was on sale.  So far we haven’t had that problem.    It is a good thing that some people are able to get really good deals so maybe the good outweighs the bad.

Rebates

I can honestly say that I hate rebates.  I have had more rebate complaints at our store than all other issues combined. 

The thing to keep in mind with rebates is that they are funded by the vendors.  The more rebates redeemed the higher their costs.  Companies are hired to handle and verify all of the rebate submissions to make sure that the rules are followed.  And believe me, people try to cheat.  A few years ago we had a rebate deal that was limited to one per household.   I had a family (mother father and two children under five) all in line with one of the item.  It was sort of funny looking.  Obviously, when these rebate forms were submitted the computer saw the same address and rejected all but one of them.  Rightly so.  The problem is that sometimes the innocent are punished too.  We have an assisted living center near our store.  The residents are really good customers.  They have a van that will bring them to shop from time to time and they buy items with rebates.  Guess what.  They all share the same mailing address.  All but one of their rebate forms will be rejected in error.  This is just wrong. 

When you get ready to send in your rebate forms be really careful follow the instructions exactly.  Make sure you conform to the date ranges for submission and send all items requested.  If you have to send the original receipt make a copy for your records. 

If you have a problem let the store know.  I don’t have any way of knowing whose rebate forms are rejected if the customer doesn’t tell me.  I know that I want to know if you have a problem and I bet most other stores do to.  My greatest rebate fear is that one of our customers will be denied wrongly and we won’t have to chance to rectify the problem.

Happy Shopping Friday!

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