I can drag this joke out for weeks I’m sure.

GOOD NEWS!!! As my sister reported in her comment to the last post, a state policeman found my bag last night right after the evacuation and called this morning. I was at the show by 8:30 am so I didn’t have a chance to find out if Barry was still in it (Cody was to embarassed to ask LOL) but he had checked that there was still cash and id so I assumed Barry would be too.

I spoke with the officer tonight and yes Barry is in the bag! He even got a free ride to Soccorro and back with a policeman. What other stuffed animal can say that? (Remind me to tell you about Agnes Gooch the bear someday she’s been all over the place.) Anyway, I just wish we’d gotten pictures.

Today went much better all around actually. When I got the the show early this morning one of the vendors in a booth next to us was packing to leave. They weren’t pleased with the sales, the lack of advertising, and especially not pleased with the bomb experience. They had shows coming up in Las Vegas so they were packing to go. One of them suggested that we use his space and combine it with ours! Ours was pretty cramped and was like a little cave inside between two corner booths. He even helped me move the tables and suggested how I arrange them. They were so nice. In fact, I met a lot of great vendors this weekend.

The customers? Well, some of them were nice anyway. Some were just rude and cheap. But that’s direct sales for ya. Seeing the scrunched noses when they saw something too funky or the rolled eyes when they saw our pricetags made me really appreciate the impersonality of online sales. But there were a lot more today. I think all the publicity about the bomb scare actually made more people come to the show. Weird.

So this morning our booth changed from this:

Day One

To this:

Day Three

It’s what you saw right behind the information booth at the entrance
Day Three

The cameraphone doesn’t take great photos but you get the idea.

So calloo callay Barry is spending another night with the cops then he’ll be back home to mama. And this show is over. And I made some decent money. Got some good responses despite clearly being in a show targeted towards a, well let’s just say thriftier customer.

Now I’m going to sleep for a week.