200 - Oddmall Everett

I'm having trouble writing down exactly how wonderful it was to be selling at The Oddmall Emprium Of The Weird yesterday, so many things made it great! So here are a few snippets of memories in non-linear antichronilogical order to convey what went on.

- This was only the third show I have ever tried to sell my lamps at, and only the fourth time I had actually let somebody have any of my lamps. The FIRST time one of my lamps went away to someone, it was via a Reddit Gift Exchange. The stranger who received my lamp never said a thing about it, even though part of the Reddit Gift Exchange rules is that you HAVE to say SOMETHING about the gift you received! So that had my bummed for quite a while... did this person ever get my lamp? Did they hate it SO MUCH that they just couldn't bring themselves to comment at all???

More on that later...

After that, there has been a pattern with sales... sold half my lamps at Bellevue Comic Con, sold zero lamps at the Masonic Temple Holiday Craft Show, sold half my lamps at the Lake City Toy Show. The one constant was that at every show, even the tiny Masonic Temple Holiday Craft Show, at least one person would tell me "You should be selling at the Oddmall shows". I looked in to it and it was more for a SINGLE DAY than I had ever paid for a table to sell stuff ANYWHERE, and everyone I talked to who had ever had a table there said it was terrible - lots of people looking, no one buying. since I just really didn't have much faith in my silly little lamps, I passed.

It wasn't till a local professional artist who works for Funko (local toy company you may have heard of) contacted me to purchase one of my lamps, that I felt like I had something special here. When I delivered the lamp to her, SHE said I should sell at Oddmall and I told her all my reasons to not do it. She said "Huh, that's weird... I sell there all the time and I make plenty of money from it!" I'm not sure what it was about the praise and encouragement of a stranger that made me decide to go for it, but she gave me contact info and I went with it!

They squeezed me in at the last minute with a single-day table!

- The day started out *terrible*, comparatively speaking. As a Comic Book/Toy Seller, I'm used to making back the cost of my table before the show even opens their doors through sales to other vendors! At Oddmall, it ends up I had PLENTY of time to do my set-up (seen above) and watch the indifference in people's eyes as they strolled right by my beautiful lamps. Maybe once or twice, I would get a sympathetic "Oh that's just so... creative..." before the people would move on. This went on for nearly TWO HOURS, where I became more and more despondent.

- This was Molly's very first "Show" of any kind as a dealer. She's attended ComiCon with us before, but as a seller? We figured that nine-years-old is officially old enough. She started the day making her Rainbow Loom Bracelets and selling them for fifty cents each. She's a NATURAL at sales - she would walk around the room carrying her loom and when adults would ask her what she had there, she would launch in to her sales pitch. "What this? Oh, this is my Rubber Band Loom! I make a variety of fine Rubber Band Bracelets and Rings in many vibrant colors! They're available for sale right over there at our table, with the big display of beautiful golden Lamps! They're just fifty cents each today, and I can take orders for custom colors if you like!"

She made three dollars in the first two hours of the show, before I even had one sale.

- Speaking of which, I finally had my FIRST SALE OF THE DAY! But not a lamp. I sold a Christmas decoration off my table that I had brought as "filler" :(

-I posted to Facebook about how I'm just too fragile of a person for this type of life. Whenever my lamps hadn't sold in the past, it was always because "Well this just isn't your crowd" - but here, in a building full of over a hundred oddball artists? THIS is the crowd I was selling to! THESE are the people who should at least *appreciate* my lamps, right?

Crystal, who was out running a few early morning errands before joining us at the show, called to give me encouragement and make sure I was okay. I told her I probably had the lamps marked at too high of prices and I was about to just say "Any lamp five bucks please take my lamps", but she talked me out of it.

And then, just as soon as she got of the phone, things started turning for the better! First of all, you remember that first lamp I sent out during a Reddit Gift Exchange way up there in the first part of this post? I got a notification from Reddit saying that the person had JUST NOW posted about that gift exchange! I clicked through to the link and found that the package had been detained by the Post Office for some reason! They took pictures! They love the lamp!

And then, just as soon as I was done reading the review of my gift, my booth was SWAMPED with people who were going CRAZY over my lamps! One lady was so excited by them, she bought THREE!

After that I sold two more lamps - enough to cover my costs for the day and make a bit of a profit!

- I was able to finally buy myself a replacement wedding ring, a pure copper triple love knot with strands to represent, me, Crystal and Molly. Hand made by a man who reminded me an awful lot of my Dad. His wife was in charge of pricing because apparently WITHOUT her, he would just make up prices based on how much he liked the customer and always end up practically giving his work away. He *really* wanted me to have that ring... his wife looked it up and it was $120, she said that for *me* I could have it for $89, then he said "No, for him I'll do $49" (which lead to a discussion between them about this is why he's not allowed to make the prices like that any more). I loved the ring, I loved the story, and made a deal with myself that if I made X-amount of dollars in cash today I would buy it.

I made five dollars less than my X-amount of money. I bought the ring anyways. When I bought it, both he and his wife hugged me :)

- So it was a great show over all! Great community, great spirit, and many lessons learned about selling in a craft fair environment!

201 - Dialect

This one had me up all night trying to wrap my head around this, and of course The Internet is no help because I use Bing (shut up, Bing promised things would be different this time), I turn to the rest of you.

How does Regional Dialect happen?

What is it about The South that makes people say "Y'all", besides the fact that everyone else is doing it? How did that start, and how did it spread in to being that EVERYONE who lives there talks that way? It had to start with one person, didn't it? And even if it DID start with one person and then spread to millions, how did it then STOP before hitting the rest of the country?

The short answer is that we talk the way we talk because we are surrounded by people who talk that way... but how did we get surrounded by people who talk that way? How does it know where to stop? How many people talking that way does it take to make it an infectious regional dialect? There are supposedly so many legal and illegal Mexican immigrants in the California, New Mexico and Arizona area of the country, why hasn't their dialect taken over in those places?

Like I said, I can't even begin to wrap my head around this. It's making my head hurt :(