NO SNOW AGAIN

The weather man is playing with us again. We were supposed to get 1-8 inches of snow last night. I'm sitting here looking out at the brown grass. It's just as well since I have a shopping trip to Chattanooga planned for tomorrow. It's suppose to get down to 16 degrees here tonight. I don't want the roads to be icy tomorrow. I have to work at the store today until 2:00. If the weather is bad the girl that comes in at 2:00 will not be able to get here since she lives on the mountain and has to drive down a curvy road. I'm not in the mood to have to work until midnight.

Let me tell you about the liquor store. My father sold preppy men's clothes for over 25 years. When the economy here took a downward turn back in the 80's, he decided to open a convenience store. He owned a couple of C-stores until about 12 years ago. He decided since he was getting older, and since he had a massive heart attack and open heart surgery in 1989, he wanted to have something easier, so he decided to open a spirits store. At the time, more people were smoking and he had cigarettes discounted. He probably sold about 700 or 800 cartons a week. That was before all the lawsuits against the big tobacco companies. Now we sell about 200 at the most a week. He also sold liquor and imported beer. After a couple of months he had to add domestic beer. He had a pretty profitable business and was well respected in the community. Two years ago this month, he suddenly became ill and he passed away about a week later. My mother, sister and I decided to keep the store open. He always told us if anything happened to keep the store open as long as we had good help. We have a lady, Carmen, that we've known since she was about 13 years old (she's 38 now). We didn't like her as a teen, but now she is like a sister. When she was younger, she was bad news. One day she decided to turn her life around. My father believed in her and gave her a chance. She's good at her job and knows how to manage things very well. We had a worker named Sharon that was a godsend, but she went back to work at a previous employer. She helps us out from time to time. Our nighttime worker does her job, but she can be a drama queen. She always has to have some ailment which she talks about excessively. For right now, I think we have a pretty good crew. My sister and I help out as much as possible. We want to do a few touch up renovations to the inside. After that we are going to increase our wine selection. Around here, people think Boone's Farm is fine wine. We sell a train load of Sutter Home and Berringer White Zinfadel. MD 20/20 is popular also, but we try to keep a very low stock of it. We are planning a wine tasting soon so that people can experience some of the better wines that our distributers carry.

Still no snow. It's time for my morning TaB. I'll report back about my finds in Choo Choo town.