Mini-vacation...

The back-and-forth with Feht over the past few days came to an end tonight (he had invited me over a couple of afternoons ago, and between a variety of circumstances, we only connected this evening). We had a pleasant, simple dinner and conversation, followed by a very old French film starring Jacques Brel.

It was a nice end to a Saturday that found me at the store for the whole business day. It was a fairly slow day in most respects. Hardly any e-mail to check (no more responses to my queries, thank goodness), but a lot of customers coming in for nickel and dime purchases.

One fellow came in to buy three plain, business-sized envelopes and wanted to pay for the 30-cent purchase with a credit card. I told him to bring in the change next time he blows through town; the processing fee on a 30-cent credit card purchase makes it cheaper for me to simply give away the merchandise, than to charge it. (The company that processes our credit cards, though, explicitly forbids us from requiring any kind of "minimum purchase" from our customers - which is good for them but can be not so good for us.)

I checked out the most recent catalog from the Fountain Pen Hospital and despair that they'll ever feature any kind of pens I'd be interested in buying. While there are one or two pens that look interesting, the prices quoted are simply ridiculous. (I make a lousy collector, too, since I like to use the pens I acquire.)

Time to hit the sack. I've got lots to do tomorrow.

Cheers...