One Step Ahead of a Shoeshine, Two Steps Away from the County Line…

I always seem to get this song stuck in my head the night before I travel to do a show. It’s a little known song from Simon and Garfunkel called “Keep the Customer Satisfied”. The chorus goes,

I get slandered, libeled I hear words I never heard in the bible,
but I’m one step ahead of a shoe shine, two steps away from the county line,
just try’n to keep the customer satisfied, satisfied.

Ok so I don’t always sing that song. Sometimes I get “Leaving On A Jet Plane” stuck up there too.

We are loaded and ready to go for this weekend’s show in Austin. I forget how much gear even a small show like this requires. In addition to my personal rope bag, I’m dragging over 200 pounds of stock to this event. TWO HUNDRED pounds! Damn, and I’m the SMALL show. Just think how much stuff Tammy and Nerdy are going to be packing to their events.

Its kinda funny really, I travel a lot for the business. Going to conventions and flying to negotiate new supply contracts and whatever else. Next year I expect to travel even more, we are even talking about doing our first ever European sales tour next year. So whenever I tell someone that I just got back from some city, the first thing they ask me is if I got to see whatever that city’s claim to fame might be. I usually shrug and say, “They have one of those there?!”

You see, the ugly truth is this. When I do travel to a city for a show I don’t get to see much more than the airport, the hotel where the event is located, and any local scenery that might be viewed from the windows of the cab to or from those locations. Ah the glamorous life of the traveling rope maker?

There is an upside to this. While I may not get to see much of the local color, I do get to meet the locals, they come out to see us. Readers, customers, friends old and new. They bring lunches when we are too busy to take a break. They open their homes to us when we have no place to stay and welcome us, strangers, into their homes like honored family.

So no, when you ask me about a place I won’t tell you what sites of local interest I saw. Instead I’ll tell you about the wonderful people I met along the way.