It was going to be a short flight Amber didn’t need to have many things to do on the plane. She decided to spend the time checking over her new clients website and her suggestions in its development. This small business made and refurbished furniture along with a warehouse of items that you could add to your home. They sold old nobs, handles with or without the windows, doors, and drawers they attach to as well as a variety of lighting fixtures. All these items never made it to the dump instead they were given a second chance, all offered at their store Tidbits, A Home Redone, which Amber thought was a very good name for the store. As a result, she thought a good border for the main page would be a collage of all the items they offered. In addition, their furniture and overstocked hardware would be sold on-line these were all things she was going to give for options when she met them. Most of her suggestions and others would be easy as they had already requested many of the ideas she was thinking of implementing. She also wanted to suggest a virtual tour of their store so that customers could see the advantages to coming into the store as a local customer.
Daisy Lu and Zeb have been married for about 20 years. During that time Zeb worked in construction and Daisy Lu took care of the children. Though on the side she liked collecting items to decorate or giving to her husband to create something from them. Slowly over the years they started doing things for friends and were hired to do some commissions here and there. Finally they were making enough money that they started a business out of their garage, soon turned warehouse. Then he finally decided to quite construction and they would move into a new house and run their business out of a barn. It wasn’t that far out-of-town for the previous owners had lived there for years as the modern world was built around them. It was a gorgeous place to be for a business like theirs.
Amber walked into their home, she had never been anywhere that had such an eclectic feel to it. There were no patterns that matched essentially resulting in a style that went together well. It was one of the most gorgeous homes she had ever entered and was welcomed into. Though she didn’t have much time to really look at the place because from the first moment she looked inside as the door opened for her she was in the midst of conversation.
“Welcome, Welcome, Welcome! We really wanted to pick you up from the airport, save you some money that way.” Already giving her a cold glass of homemade lemonade and having her sit in front of various homemade snacks.
“Miss out on some tourist time in Savannah, you wouldn’t want to deprive me of that now would ya.” Already her southern accent became a little thicker in their presence which went well with theirs.
“No, no, no, we wouldn’t. Didn’t know ya liked Savannah that much, it is a good place to live, How long do ya’ plan on stayin’?” Very excited to hear someone like her home town, Daisy Lu had lived there since she was born and didn’t plan on moving any time soon.
“For 3 days, I like to leave some opportunity for us to re-meet if either of us has any questions, it is a bit better in person than over the phone don’t you think? Especially if there are some glitches in the development of the website. No charge though for sight-seeing, just hours worked, nothing beyond.” Amber said in a little more relaxed way than normal because she had felt so at ease with them the second she walked in.
“Well now we like you already.” Daisy Lu looking at her husband smiling.
“Daisy Lu here is new to the website jargon, she was frettin’ she might not remember everything you taught her, now I can see ya have already given back her sleep for the next few nights. She can worry this one, quite a bit, nothing worse than a tossin’, turnin’ Daisy Lu, feel like we have one of those vibratin’ hotel beds, you know the ones with the quarter slot machines, every time she does. Even have a few out back to show ya’ if you don’t know what I am talking about.” Zeb said in a very lovingly, joking and serious way.
Amber laughed a little, “Yeh, you’re talkin’ about those beds that feel like more of an amusement ride rather than something to relax in after a long day.”
“You got that right, I don’t know how those things ever became popular.” Daisy Lu says handing Amber a Dream Bar, she continues, “Here have one of these been makin’ them in my family for generations.”
Zeb adds, “You must eat, not one person who has ever been in our home hasn’t had one of these. Heck, I remember being so nervous about meeting Daisy Lu’s parents for the first time almost ate the whole plate and would have licked it too before I think I even said a word. Helped me though, her parents thought if I could eat that much in one sittin’ I wouldn’t mind eatin’ them for the rest of my life. They were right, never have stopped liking them since and along with that I have never stopped liking being with my Daisy Lu.”
“Aw Zeb don’t make me blush, Now go and get that laptop of ours so we can get some work done.” Daisy Lu said with a smile.
Amber smiled and felt like one of the family already. She took out her things and began showing Daisy Lu and soon Zeb joined in looking at all the options for the website she had prepared.
She was there almost until night fall talking about logistics, taking pictures and even had a leisurely lunch. All the while Zeb and Daisy both would be interrupted every once in a while by their helper Les.
At first there didn’t seem to be anything special about him, he didn’t seem like a real southern guy nor a city or even a country guy either, he seemed very versatile, very…
Her thoughts were interrupted by Daisy Lu. “Amber would you like more lemonade? I see you are almost out of yours.”
“No I think we are pretty much done, with these changes, it should give you a little more business than you are used to having. In fact, have you given any thought of what you would do if you did get a lot of orders coming your way?” Amber said, wanting to make sure that she didn’t give them too much to handle. Nothing worse than a business that gets bad reviews because it took on too much.
Without hesitation Daisy Lu mentions, “yeah we were gunna hire Les on full-time. He is already good with computers and knows the business pretty well. We have been hiring him part-time since a few years back. Needed to send our baby off to college, you know and the drive up to that big place to help her set up and find a place to live, move in you know all those things you do when you first go to college. Even had to help her find all the good local places to go if she needed anything, right quick. You should have seen the look on her face all scared, thought there was a ghost in the car as white as she was. She says we had the same looks on our faces as well. Well we couldn’t close the business down for a few weeks like we normally would, had some people coming in from Florida. Guess they stopped by here on their way home from visiting DC and they didn’t have the space then, their rig completely full on up. So they said they be back before the end of the summer. We didn’t think much of it at the time, always having passers by on their way from here to there, though we gave them our card like we normally would do and invited them to come back. Lo’an’ behold a few weeks later called us back and said they would be on their way, in about a week to be exact. Well that was the same week we were going to take our baby to college, so we asked Les who worked in construction as a free lancer to come on out and help us. Paid him the same wages he would have made while working construction. Les agreed and it was the best decision we ever made. We came back, he had organized all the drawer handles we had sitting in a tub. Made them look all nice and pretty he did, even labeled them for the customers. There were porcelain handles I haven’t seen in years, bought way back even before Zeb and I met. We were so grateful we hired him every time we needed to go somewhere or when we had big orders come in to ship out.”
Zeb interjected, “knew he was a good worker once I saw him struggle with a sink in a civil war era plantation home. Still to this day I think that sink would have remained standing in a nuclear holocaust in that home but Les for some reason had that sink out of there and replanted a new and improved version completely un harming the surroundings in three days time. Always knew I wanted to hire him full-time then but just didn’t have the business yet, maybe this website will help?”
“I sure hope so, I think I will go and work on it some more and come back tomorrow if ya’ don’t mind.” Amber said very happy with the day.
“Not at all.” Daisy Lu and Zeb said in unison. “We look forward to it.”
-Jennie Nawrocki