Failing at your own business–Crap Shoppe

By this time, we had accumulated quite a bit of clothing that my son had grown out of, as well as some other things that we didn’t need. I still had the crap from the first ‘bazaar’ that we hadn’t sold, and my husband decided he didn’t need all the tools he had brought.

My mother-in-law also had quite a pile of crap. She was then working as a street sweeper for the presidencia (town) and collected things from the market trash cans that ‘were still good’ and brought them home. She also made hand crocheted bags made with ‘fichas’ soda can tabs.

I moved my school things to one corner, bought a vitrina (glass display case) and organized the stuff. She and I decided to work together in minding the store and opened the Crap Shoppe. Now my mother-in-law and I get along like oil and water, so we tried to manage it so that we both weren’t at the local at the same time. I taught my classes, she swept the road, and in our spare moments, we opened.

I was not an active seller, preferring to work on my planning for school or other work that can only be done where there was electricity. My mother-in-law, however,was a professional street hawker. She would stand at the doorway, inviting EVERY passerby to look over her stuff. She also named a price higher than I was asking and usually got it, with a thank you from the buyer for the honor of buying this crap.

It’s an arrangement that worked out for the both of us. And there was a bit of money at the end of the day.

We were in business together about 6 months before she was killed. I really didn’t have time to open the Crap Shoppe full-time on my own with my classes, so I closed.

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