Going to Hell in a Snow Shovel

Yesterday, I came to the conclusion that we are all doomed and the financial world is going to hell, not in a hand basket, but in a snow shovel.

Let me explain…

Last night I had the joyous experience of trudging downtown through 6 inches of dirty, slushy, sloppy snow to finish up my last minute holiday shopping.

Hoping for some relief from the muddy slop when I finally reached a dignified, more trafficked shopping area, i was shocked to find out that there would be no relief.

In the midst of all the Gucci, Prada, iPhones and Starbucks, apparently NONE of the shop keepers managed to shovel any snow outside of their businesses.

Not one!

The result was a once beautiful town square being replaced instead with a sloppy mud pit, filled with hoards of insane holiday shoppers splashing and stampeding through the shops and malls, all the while dragging the slop with them.

The floors and carpets of every store were basically destroyed and replaced with a dirty, dangerous, slip and slide of ruined products, cranky shoppers and twisted ankles. No joy in Mudville…

To make matters even worse, once I navigated the madness and found an item I wanted to purchase, I had to wait at the store counter for about 20 minutes for help, because instead of helping customers and making SALES (resulting in PROFIT), on average, 2 employees were tasked full time with running mops and wet vacs, trying to maintain the muddy carnage.

What the HELL??

Not one shop keeper had the sense to take 5 minutes to run a shovel and sprinkle some salt outside their business entrance.

Not one lazy bastard had enough brains to even flip a couple bucks at some needy kid to sling some snow and clear a safe, clean path for their customers, freeing up valuable expensive sales staff hired to SELL.

Not one MORON manager made an attempt to make their storefront a welcoming, inviting place to shop, whereby standing out from all the rest of the pig styes with a statement of “Welcome! We care! We want you to shop here!”

Then, the cherry on top of my shopping slush cake of a day was when I passed by 2 different stores, who in fact actually SOLD SNOW SHOVELS, and get this…

One was closed!

The other… DID NOT SHOVEL THE SNOW in front of their door!!!

Now everything was perfectly clear…

There is an old business saying that goes like this:

“During a gold rush, a wise man is not he who digs but he who sells the shovels.”

I used to think that to be true but now I think that’s wrong.

It should say:

“During a gold rush, a shovel salesman is useless unless he can do his damn job right”

In the middle of an economic crisis, nothing says DOOM more than a Snow Shovel Store with snow covering the front door.

Next year when it snows, if you’re looking to find me, i’ll be that guy in the middle of downtown with a pile of shiny new snow shovels all marked up 500%. See you there.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!