Slightly Off Center

...is how I can put out an incredibly niche item, one that'll never sell, and ten minutes later, someone comes into the booth and says, You have a platypus mug?! And when I make a joke about attaching a construction paper fedora, she says Perry the Platypus mug? and we both geek out about the platypus researcher who discovered that they fluoresce green under UV light, and the creator of Phineas and Ferb's reaction.

These are my people.

I send out postcards before major shows, including the opening of Saturday Market in spring, and Holiday Market in November. Increasingly, these are emails, but I still maintain a physical mailing list, from back in the day when people paid with checks. Little, by little, the list is dwindling, as people disappear, or move outside the area. I got a card back on a long-time customer, Forward Time Expired, with a new address in New Mexico, so I reluctantly removed them from my mailing list.

They showed up at Market yesterday. Back in town for a week, and daughter, now in grad school, insisted on visiting Holiday Market so she could pick out her Christmas plate. Guess I'd better dig the card out of recycle and put the new address on the list.

I've sold four teapots already this season, to the same guy. He bought two, and a bank, several weeks ago, called on Saturday to ask if he could get two more. And another bank, and, oh, could he get the peacock canister? I now have one six-cup and two four-cup teapots to get me through the season. He says he mailed one teapot to New Zealand, cost him $98 in postage. Yikes! That's half-again the price of the teapot.

ETA: The walrus mug sold this weekend!