Bitter is the taste of a missed sale.

The other day I had a guy come into the store on a mission. He was taking a bit of a road-trip on his way to meet up with his girlfriend for the holidays. As he traveled he would duck into various and sundry stores in the hopes of finding truly unique and special gifts for him to add to her sexual toy box. He had two grand burning a hole in his pocket. Two grand he wanted to deposit into our coffers.

It killed me that we had NOTHING locally produced or one-of-a-kind that appealed to him. Even the rather varied collection of hand-made glass dildos did not catch his eye for long. Our stock lacked the desired girth.

Times like these are damn near a steel-toe boot to the professional nads. I could cry. The pain is all but palpable when a patron exits the building without leaving their entire disposable income behind in the safety of my register drawer. The bastard was the next best thing to "Brigadoon"; someone with copious money to spend, wanting to invest in substantial ticket items, and targeted on those items that tend to only appeal to select shoppers. You never plan on the creatures ever appearing, but by the gods, you want to be prepared to shake every last coin out of them if you do.

And I failed in that charge.