My Heroine -- and Likely Yours as Well . . .

I am in the midst of a run of six shows in seven weeks.  Doesn’t leave much time for anything more than traveling and doing the show.  So I am sitting in a hotel room in Minnesota this morning, a week behind in telling stories from last weekend’s show in Florida – with next weekend’s show in Texas already staring me in the face.

But there is an incident from the Florida show that needs to be discussed – and one of our customers who needs to be applauded.

This was the view from my cash register about half an hour after the show opened in Kissimmee last Saturday.  Nothing unusual – the booth was packed, I was running the cash register, Anna Ely was at the demo table, and Melinda Sutton was running around in the booth helping customers and answering questions.

And then Ivette Rodriguez entered the scene, waving to get my attention as she walked up to the cash register, and telling me that I needed to chase after two women who had just walked past me and were headed toward the door.  I didn’t get it at first – so she continued – “They have your stuff in their bags!”

So I walked quickly into the lobby and as I reached the two women, I could easily see two large rolls of Scor-Tape in one of their shoulder bags.  So I escorted them back into the hall and waved for Sandy from StampFest to follow me.

I have a full picture of the two women that clearly shows their faces – really wanted to post it to let them absorb the embarrassment, but I have heard various opinions of the legal ramifications since ultimately no charges were filed.  So I have cropped it to simply show what these two thought they were entitled to take from us (and ultimately, YOU!).  Ivette got my attention again during this process to make sure that I understood that the second woman had exactly the same thing in her shoulder bag – and that she had overheard one telling the other “Oh yes, you need this!” as they were slipping the rolls of tape into their bags.

So they paid for their “purchases” – honestly, would you risk having a criminal record for the rest of your life for $40 worth of crafting tape? – and I asked Sandy to escort them to Debby Drabik (the StampFest promoter – and the angel who gave us our first opportunity at a show 20 years ago, when no one outside of Dayton, Ohio had ever heard of us).  Bluntly, I had Sandy take them to Debby because I had customers patiently waiting for me, and I knew that Debby would scare the hell out of them before she kicked them out of the show – and she did.

But this story is more about Ivette – we rely on honest people to be our eyes in areas that we can’t see during a busy show.  Ivette could have chosen to look the other way, or simply not to become involved.  And I am grateful that instead, she chose to protect us.

I am not a Karma guy, but I find it amazing – and fitting – that later in the day Ivette Rodriguez won two gift certificates to our booth from the StampFest folks.  And I posted on our Facebook page a picture of Ivette with a brief summary of what she did for us – it has been viewed nearly 12,000 times.

Sometimes it truly does pay to be a Good Samaritan . . .