Consigning the Stone

This week, I've been preparing for, volunteering for and pulling my hair out due to my semiannual consignment sale that I am involved with. If I had slept within that week, I would have rephrased that sentence so it didn't end with a preposition. But, whatever. I'm not going to.

This sale is exhausting. In the first place, there are a ton of rules for how things have to be hung, what kind of hangers you have to use, how to label, what size safety pins are acceptable, etc, etc. I follow the rules and jump through the hoops, because everyone does and that ensures that I won't get home with something with only one button. It's happened to me before.

But, anytime that I am unhappy with the way things are going in my world, I start fantasizing about opening a business. I don't know why. Maybe it's the American dream. Maybe I'm really just a glutton for punishment. But one of my favorite parts of that daydreaming is naming my fictional business.

Last night, on the drive home where I was struggling to stay awake and drinking water like a man in the desert, I decided on the name of fictional children's consignment shop: Consigning the Stone. You know, like the movie? Romancing the Stone? With the writer? Man, I love that movie.

And then it occurred to me that this, this right here, is why I don't run a small business. Because I would name it something weird and go completely broke. So, for posterity and amusement, here are a few of the businesses I have considered opening and the names I have given them in my mind:

1. Miss Havisham's Books and Oddities: This is my favorite. I go back to this one a lot. It's a children's book store, but oh so much more. With activities and camps and festivals and book clubs, it's a place for kids to grow to love literature. And I'm going to dress in a dirty, torn wedding dress every day and we'll also sell weird stuff that strikes my fancy. Things that all the trendy shops in town wouldn't even look twice at, like raven bookends and Hamlet skulls.

2. Table for Town: My homestyle restaurant in the world's smallest town. I would specialize in family style meals that can be eaten in at my large, scarred wooden kitchen tables or carried out to eat at your own. (I should note here that Brynna has a completely different business plan for her restaurant, Princess Brynna's Really Good Cuisine, that would probably get more traffic than mine.)

3. The Elusive Owl: My English style pub, famous for it's Guiness on tap and fish and chips. Pictures of the queen everywhere and a wall of books by dead Brits. Oh, and darts. Darts are important.

4. Tarty Arts and Cracked Crafts: My consignment gallery for local artists, crafters and artisans. Everything from handstamped cards to sculpture.

5. In Stitches with my Bitches: This is another of my favorites. At it's core, it's a needlecraft shop, with everything you need for knit, crochet, embroidery, tatting, crewel, cross stitch, whatever. But it's oh so much more. It's a learning center where the best and the brightest teach. It's a sit and stitch where you can come to get out of the house and work. It's friendships waiting to happen and art about to be made. I'd live there.

So, there you have it. All more stores that no one would ever go to. And now we can add Consigning the Stone, which I would have to explain to everyone who came in. Yeah, that would be great.