She turned to the man standing just there and opened her mouth as if to speak. Somehow sensing that words would never adequately express the love in her heart, she gently laid her head upon his shoulder and began to weep. Holding the woman tightly as night descended upon them, the man comforted her as best he could. They were alone now. The tourist crowds had long since departed into the sunset, ill-prepared for the chill that spread through the air like a ghost. Though the woman's legs were weakened by her desire, his arms held her strong. Savoring this perfect moment, she knew then that she would never fall. Never ever ever fall again. And just as she was beginning to hope that the moment would never end, the man let loose with a mighty fart, the reverberations echoing cleanly in the crisp night. He instinctively looked around for a dog to blame but, alas, there was none to be found. The spell broken, they drift apart now, only their fingertips touching as they walk away into darkness.
Ahem.
Yeah, sometimes I have no idea either.
The entirety of my Sunday evening was spent trying to assemble a T-shirt order for everybody who won or purchased them. After six hours getting everything straightened out, it somehow all came together in a massive pile of PayPal receipts and emails...
My task was made considerably more difficult in that nearly one-third of the orders never resulted in a PayPal email notification, so I had to go back through all the orders again to make sure my count was correct.
The GOOD news is that I am finally finished now, and my shirt order has been sent in. I am hopeful that the distributor has everything in stock so I can ship everything out by the end of the month (I am getting tired of all those CDs, books, and DVDs cluttering up my dinner table). I promise to send out an email once I have a date to share.
There has got to be a better way to do this next time. Order counts were quadrupled from last year, and I was taken completely by surprise at the amount of work it was going to be. Heaven only knows how many trips to the post office I'm going to have to make once the shirts arrive.
And I do it all for you, dear reader. All for you.
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Damn that’s a lot of receipts. You’re right, there must be a better way. Unfortunately I have no idea what that would be. Sorry. 🙂
Wow, how many orders did you have?
Us readers appreciate your weekend paperwork hassle.
And we readers love you, dear Dave. *swoon*
Perhaps investing in some sort of invoicing/customer database would be wise? G’luck.
It’s why we love you Dave. It’s why we love you.
Nice way to ruin a nice little story *farts*
You’re the man Dave! If I could, I would send you the training version of Mail Order Manager that we use here. It is setup to be some sporting goods company, but I have found that you could manipulate it and run it as another company.
We’ll send beer : )
On the upside, maybe they’ll make you an honorary postman and give you one of those fun hats!
Nice story. 🙂
Wow…that’s a crap-ton of orders!! I think, for having you process THAT many orders, we should really have an official “Dave Day”….where we all have to wear the tee-shirts. It will sweep the nation…maybe the president will give you a symbolic key, or something…
Your dedication to us is remarkable, Dave. Are those the actual orders or like the trick where you put $100 on top of a bunch of $1’s?
quickly leaves room)
That’s the result of being talented, kind and just generally great… Yeah, some kind of back end customer ordering thing might be a plan… I’ve heard good things about http://oscommerce.com/ …
And we appreciate it immensely. Thanks Dave, my most favorite blogger (after my wife of course).
Gosh, that’s a lot of paper.
I do hope you recycle.
WARNING… T-SHIRT ECONOMICS BELOW!! 🙂
No Chanakin, those are all real orders! They are in three stacks, The bottom 2/3 have been printed from PayPal email confirmations. The remaining 1/3 is divided between PayPal direct receipts (I never got an email) and other stuff (like people who won shirts or prizes and only had to pay for shipping and such.
For everybody who was a coupon winner, I lose $1.20. I was expecting I might give away 50 of them. I gave away 387. Out of that, 264 people turned in coupons, meaning I am losing $456. I then gave away an additional 16 free shirts, which really bumps up the damage! But then some people ordered extra shirts outside of the coupon… for which I make $3.50 each (most of which is eaten up in postage overruns, printing the info booklets, buying plastic bags, etc.).
Once all is said and done, I am calculating that I will be losing less than $100 this time! So, to everybody who bought an extra shirt or two… thanks for helping to keep me out of the poor house! 🙂
The whole deal here is that I DON’T want to make money on my T-shirts. Honestly, I do it so people are able to get high-quality Blogography shirts at a cheap price (and have something fun to wear!). I make a small amount of money on each shirt that I then use to pay for free shirts that I give away. If I work it out right, it all kind of balances out… I don’t make or lose money… EXCEPT for Blogiversaries, where I expect to pay out some cash! 🙂
So it’s kind of win-win. My readers get something cool to wear (without having to pay $20+ for a T-shirt!), and I get to make my readers happy at a minimal expense. I love that. 🙂
Even though I cashed in a coupon on a free shirt, I still plan on buying more shirts in the future. So hopefully my (and other people’s) future orders will help reduce your deficit even further.
BTW, do you plan on offering additional designs in the future as well?
You’re the Candy Man. The Happy, Willy Wonka, Sammy-Davis, Jr. kind, though, not the giant scary murdering ghost with the hooks and bugs and things.
Whoops, my last comment got cut off somehow, I didn’t even get to the punchline. My work computer was being such a jackass today. Oh well, I don’t feel like recreating it.
I think I might move to India so I can be the first in line for a job when Dave starts outsourcing his booming t-shirt business. That would be awesome!
Oh, and the excuse, if there is no dog to be blamed, and especially if you are outdoors (as I learned from my dad), is that you “stepped on a frog.”
I can’t wait to get my shirt. I like to sleep in big T-shirts and the Zombie Monkey seemed like the best buy around town for a slumber shirt. I’m psyched, and happy for you that so many people will be advertising for you. It’s great!
thank you.
I would have ordered more shirts ecept I’m currently unemployed. But I fully intend to after my Vegas trip!
We all deeply appreciate your generous spirit, Dave2!