I have several hardware stores I love to visit. Two are close to my home, and two are a little farther away. The farthest has an annual Ladies Day where they focus on women. They have presentations given by various groups or presented by a hardware store employee. This year, I was wanting to see Employee Wayne's presentation on plumbing. However, his was the last of the day, and we had agreed to meet up with friends for a visit and then dinner, so I needed to leave before Wayne was up to bat.
I saw a woman I knew who was going to another place we both go, also on the farflung list from my house, and while I would have loved to go there as well, I decided instead to focus solely on ladies' day.
Each woman coming in gets a ticket that provides a discount on her purchase. Anything between 10 and 30%. She needs to rub off the space to see what percentage. This year I got 20% off. so I bought some anti-fouling paint for the boat. I also got chance to talk with the woman named Jane who'd invented an easy-to-use velcro and sticky tape setup to put around boots, ankles, or wrists to stop ticks from being able to crawl up on a body and settle in for a feed. She'd started the business by accident. A retired nurse, she wanted to find a way to keep her grandkids safe from ticks crawling on them while they played outside. Word spread, demand grew, and her business was born. I bought two sets, one for me and one for Himself. He does a bit of outdoor work for his job, and I figured he could try a set of Tacklers® to see if they were useful enough for him to want to order pairs for his staff.
They had food, too. Some local meat sticks, teriyaki meat, pastries, and cheese as well as a coffee station. No tea, so I had a small bottled water. One of the presenters gave a talk on bees and beekeeping. Jane talked about ticks, tick checks, and a little about her product as an alternative to sprays.
Two places around the store had tables for raffles. One was for a $500 store gift certificate. Another was for various door prizes. I entered both of them. The door prize table had numerous items, including an electric chain saw, a handsome basket full of different cleaning products, and smaller items.
To my surprise, I won! They called me yesterday to let me know. My car was at the mechanic's so I couldn't go right away to claim my prize. Himself drives very near there on his daily commute and kindly stopped to pick it up.
Funnily enough, it was the one small prize that really caught my eye. I thought of the flight I'd taken when I was knitting something and had no way to cut the yarn while en route. Problem solved now.
