Not available at your local Pel-Mart store. I'm just showing off some of my roses and baby's breath that are growing in our back yard. This one is from Jackson and Perkins and is called the Disneyland Rose. I think it's one of my favorites. Another subject of debate for me and Mick, tea rose vs. floribunda. I took advantage of his missing me and ended the debate quickly by adamantly stating, " I much prefer the floribundas, hands-down!" Mick's response, "Oh, ok." So the next puchase and planting of roses, which will be surrounding our vegetable garden, will be floribundas ( and I think some of those nice David Austen English roses--and a smattering of baby's breath). Hoping for a successful summer for Pel-Mart and the Wheelwatch.
Talk about running a family business! I feel like we're bi-coastal with Mick in Alaska and me in Oregon, but that would be the same coast line, of course. Still, the distance...I may as well be in Nova Scotia and he in South Africa.
You need a little bit of background to "get" this story. First, the long distance service in Alaska. It's a bad joke. The pay-the-most plan. I don't even know how many cents per minute a person pays, but few do anymore and AT&T sure doesn't like it. I thought huge companies were no longer allowed to have monopolies ever since the government broke up Ma Bell. But what about when no one wants to move into an area and operate their business? I'm not sure if that is exactly the case with the phone companies and Alaska, but it may be.
Long distance service is so expensive in Alaska that everyone I know who fishes or lives in a city (but not the city of Pelican) uses a cell phone. Regular long distance, i.e. AT&T is ludicrously expensive. You could buy a liver on the black market for a liver transplant for less than what a year of long distance service through AT&T would cost you. Which may be why most Pelicanites use calling cards. Some may be saving up for that liver transplant.
There is another option. One can actually use a cell phone from Pelican. But given the proliferation of golf carts in recent years, few people are willing to walk to the top of the Dump Hill to make a call. But they could. You can actually get cell phone service from that location. But I guess it isn't too practical, particularly when trying to do business. So a calling card it is. Or would be.
But I couldn't find a card for Mick that would give him a decent amount of in-state minutes. Non-AT&T cards are impossible to find in Juneau and if you do find one, it usually won't let you re-charge your minutes. If anyone knows differently, please clue us in. I'm not sure why this situation exists, but I have my own conspiracy theory. I'll spare you today, though. So I ended up getting Mick an AT&T calling card and out of 240 minutes, only 30 of those were in-state minutes.
So then I found a non-AT&T calling card for Mick that had an adequate amount of in-state minutes for him to use. And of course, it doesn't really work. Oh, he can call people in state, but he and the other party get an impossible echo, and there is a really annoying delay, as if he was calling from Afghanistan. Basically, this card with adequate minutes is rendered useless in the state of Alaska. Fortunately it works just fine for calling out of state. Which is why I have remained quite involved in our family business. When Mick needs to talk to someone at the D.E.C. or anyone else in the state of Alaska, he calls me first. Then I call the party he needs to speak with, briefly (or not) explain our phone dilemma and ask them to call Mick back. Fortunately, most do.
We do it this way because down here in Oregon, I get unlimited long distance for a flat rate of $20 a month. So our conversations go like this:
me: Hello?
Mick: Good morning.
me: Oh, hi.
Mick: Call me right back.
me: sure.
Mick: Bye.
me: [click...redial...]
And then business begins. Well, ok, most of the time we just talk. Family stuff, marital stuff, what's happening at either end, a little gossip if there is any...but then there is business.
Because there isn't a bank in Pelican and we were unhappy with our Merchant Services account that we'd previously had, we decided to move our business banking and Merchant Services to our bank in Dallas, and that way, at least one of us had contact with real, live people and didn't have to talk through a delay and an echo to get anything done. We like our little bank. If we've learned anything it is to stay away from anyone who's too big, all those entities in the news who were considered too big to allow them to fail. Small and personal works best. So here is our business routine:
Mick calls me then I call him back. Usually he places an order with Costco, so he gives me all the item numbers and amounts, then I plug in the debit and membership numbers and shipping info. If they have any questions, I give them Mick's number (because people can call in just fine, it's only Mick who can't really call out when it's an in-state number). They should call with questions, but they don't. And I'm getting a little ahead of myself. I write in whether or not the order is to be shipped U.S.P.S. or Alaska Seaplane Service, depending on whether the order is dry goods or perishable. Then I fax it to Juneau Costco. Oh, Mick wouldn't have any trouble faxing anything. Except that I have everything and he has nothing. Remember I said that I had tools of all kinds, two chain saws, etc.? Well, I also have ALL the office equipment, including the fax machine. So I fax in the orders.
As always, ordering food from Costco is a bit of an adventure, kind of like letting an eight year-old pack your suitcase for a trip through the Amazon. Because we are stocking Pel-Mart from Costco, we're never quite sure what we're getting until it gets to Mick, which is why it would be nice if they'd call with questions. For example: Mick wanted ten one-pound blocks of butter. That is what I wrote. The Costco catalog wasn't really clear on how the butter was packaged, but there were multiple choices. So I wrote in, no item number, 10 1-pound packages of butter. Mick received 10 packages of butter, but they were four 1-pound packages. Maybe this is confusing. What I'm saying is, Mick now has 40 pounds of butter instead of 10. This is ok, just a bit startling when unpacking the boxes and the butter never seems to end. So we won't be ordering butter for awhile.
Mick's doing special orders for people, too. He's trying to round up hangers and a shower curtain for someone right now, but he's also trying to keep fresh fruit in stock, too. I was very sorry to hear that a much-admired friend of ours from Phonograph has been diagnosed with M.S. All she really feels like eating is fresh fruit, grapes in particular, so Mick is doing his best to keep the grapes coming. Not always easy when freight gets last priority on the plane, but honestly, when we're flying, we wouldn't want to be bumped for a cantaloupe either. So we understand the reasoning behind passengers, baggage, mail, then freight.
Mick's got a suggestion list next to the cash register. So far, no one has suggested that he go straight to hell--on paper, at least. He has received requests for margarine, after going through a butter vs. margarine debate with me when I tried to tell him that he needed to carry both. Now he will. Also Kraft Mac n Cheese has been requested. Honestly, I don't know why we hadn't thought of this one in the first place, except that we are one of the few households I know with kids who never eat it. So mac n cheese is on the way. A little surprisingly, and just a little, bread has been a huge hit. Back when the old store was open, bread was popular, too. But they bought such large quantities and froze it, that it was almost never soft, but dried out from the beginning. Yes, people love their bread.
Most popular item of all? This will be no surprise to anyone living in Alaska. It may be surprising to those who reside outside that state. Lettuce? Apples? Good tomatoes? Of course not. It's cigarettes. And Pel-Mart is the only place in Pelican to get them. The last time Mick had a Costco order arrive, he looked like the Pied Piper, a line of smokers trailing him all the way back up the boardwalk from the post office. Nicotine-addicted crazies vibrating and salivating with their need. He'd sold close to half his supply before he'd been able to unload his boxes and re-stock his shelves. He had to turn around and order more right away. Keep the masses happy.
My phone rang at 7:30 this morning.
me: What are you doing calling this early? [I know, not the most polite way to answer the phone, but I knew it has Mick].
Mick: I was just calling to let you know that I won't be home until this afternoon, in case you tried to call.
me: What's up?
Mick: Oh, Jon and I are just going up the beach to work up some firewood and I don't think we'll be back until this afternoon. There's a lot of it.
me: Oh, ok. Call me when you get back and then I'll call you--well, you know the routine by now.
Mick: Ok. Bye, hon.
me: Bye. Have fun.
I hung up feeling positively dumb-founded. Almost fifteen years of marriage, years of feeling aggravated when I'd "lose" Mick while in Pelican, he calls to tell me what he's doing? I used to never understand how it was possible to lose someone in a town that consists of a half-mile of boardwalk, but I would. He'd always go off with our good friend Jon and never say a word.
Now I'm about 1500 miles and one time zone away and he calls me at 7:30 in the morning to let me know what he's up to and where he's going? Well, no complaints from me. I hope it lasts. Of course, I didn't ask if he was calling me as my considerate husband or if he was calling me as a business partner. Some questions are better left unasked.
Comments