I've dropped the ball again on a store order. It's one of those things keeping me awake at night. I took the order for a new account in February for delivery in late August/early September. But my retail show in August wiped me out of a lot of inventory. And the stuff the store ordered takes awhile to make. And the order slipped through one of the cracks opening up in my manic life. Until I thumbed through some papers a week ago and found it.
So I've been writhing with guilt, yet strangely reluctant to call the store and just tell them the order will be late. Partly this is because, during the recession, many stores would use any excuse to simply cancel an order. Partly it was because I knew I'd let them down.
Today I made up my mind to call them, apologize, and ask them what they wanted me to do. I could ship part of the order now, the rest later. Hold up the order til it was complete. Cancel the order.
I dialed the number. It rang and rang. No answer. Odd, I thought. Someone should be there on Thursday afternoon.
Then I looked more closely at the address on the order form.
The store is in Houston.
They're in the middle of evacuating for Hurricane Rita.
If I had shipped the order on time, it would have been one more thing the store owner would have had to worry about.
I don't know what to think, beyond how weird these things go.
P.S. As I reread this, I hope it doesn't seem like I'm trivializing Hurricane Rita. I'm praying for my friend Mark Rosenbaum, the award-winning glass blower. He had just evacated his family and employees from his studio in New Orleans, to...Houston. He's frantically trying to make the next move to safety. You are in my heart and prayers, Mark and Brenda, along with everyone else in Rita's path.
