Gary Panter blog

The Gary Store

That's what we call it around the house. The gary store. When people order stuff, I write the order down in a little ledger book to back up the information. Then I look for the items and pack them up and trundle off to the post office and stand in line. I take about 8 items at a time to mail, or up to 12 items, so that the people in the Post Office don't riot. Customers, that is. Don't you hate it when someone comes in with 100 things to order and fusses over each one and everyone starts getting really edgy and restless? I try to avoid that. Helene says I am crazy and that I should take all the packages I want, but I won't. And really, I don't want to lug in more than 12 at a time. Ultimately, the customer suffers for my 'civility'.

Drawing the custom drawings takes a bit of my time. I am always working on about 12 of them at a time; anywhere from 8 to 20, even. It's nice when the number I am penciling is an even number because then they sit on my drawing table better. 2 rows of 6 is good. 3 rows of 4 takes up more of my drawing area. The patrons of the custom drawing offer have been very patient and I strive to do good drawings for people and it sometimes takes longer than 2 months, as more than a few people will tell you, but I think a lot of them liked the drawing I did for them. A great moment for me was around the New Year when I was only down to working on 2 or 3 drawings. I felt like I caught up for a minute. Now I am working on 16 again.

Of course working on custom drawings cannot be all I work on in a day. To say the least. Sheesh. Don't get me started.

Then there is, you know, the handling part of postage and handling, wherein I pack the thing up. I try to do a good job, so that the thing gets there in one piece. I'm sorry the deliveries are not shot from cannons. It's just me in the little shack on the ice. If you have any question or complaint, please don't be shy. Sometimes I make mistakes in writing something down, or some machine at the Post Office catches a tiny bit of tape on the corner of your order as it speeds through the great terminal in Grand Rapids and flays packing from matter and your plastic plate ends up in Oshkosh kibboshed b'gosh.

Or sometimes I send two things instead of one by accident, because I didn't block in the little square by the order entry in the little ledger book I keep. You can send the stuff back to me if you want, but it would be fine with me if you just let me know that I screwed up by email and then give the extra to some one who might like it and not just toss it, or spit on it, or revile it in some twisted ritualistic fashion. That's the last thing I need is you, the valued customer, giving the 'extra' to some deranged maniac. Give to some sane, upstanding, art lover please, not the nut. For crying out loud!

I like having the little virtual shed store. It reminds me of selling fireworks with Robert Weddle back in 1967 out of a tin trailer on the highway right outside the southern city limits of Sulphur Springs, Texas, where it was legal to pack all the fireworks you could in a tin shack on wheels and huddle around a gas stove with an open flame to keep from freezing. Thats what the gary store recalls to mind.