In 20 years I've grown to accept the fact that there are quite a few things in life you can't control. The availability of ice ready to serve on opening day for a business that deals exclusively in ice-based frozen deserts shouldn't be one of them.
From the moment I decided opening day would be Monday the 10th, I began saying, "I want everything ready to go the Friday before, so we can take the weekend off and have no bumps on opening day." Two years of previous experience should have alerted me to the naivety of that statement.
The weekend I was supposed to have off was not spent at the pool as I envisioned, but rather coating myself in sugar and moving a freezer through downtown Hinsdale. While the stress mounted during the weekend, by 11 AM Monday morning, I was feeling more at ease. The store looked great, all our supplies were in order, the ice shaving machine still worked (which has been the biggest question every year) and there were already kids lined up at the door. Two years of previous experience should have also let me know that this is the moment when something will go wrong.
Every year there has been something on the morning of opening day; this year, however, I had a new plot twist. I removed a bucket of what was supposed to be ice from the brand new freezer I purchased for the summer; the ice had been freezing for close to two days (enough time by any measure). What I pulled out, however, was a not bucket of ice, but water. Then I pulled out seven more. 45 minutes to opening and I have no ice. All I sell is ice.
Nevertheless, after an initial 10 minutes of panic, followed by a hopeless surrender, followed by the strong consideration just to ignore the opening day hype and open Tuesday, we called an audible. Opening day turned into a tremendous success; we saw many familiar faces from last summer and got off to a great start for the summer. The rest of the week has proceeded as Tropical Sno should. Our customers have been as awesome as ever, the spills and drips have been as frequent as ever and peoples' capacity to help with charity has been as inspiring as ever. We even had a kid come in offering to pay what he told us was a 50 cent debt from last summer.
As I raced to find a solution to my ice problem on Monday, I recalled the wise words from a favorite song: "Just laugh it off, it's better than it seems... so go and Dance Yrself Clean." It helped me put everything back in perspective and put a smile back on my face. This job can be incredibly stressful and terribly frustrating. I never really stop running errands from even before I secure a lease until several months after we close. It tests my patience when I witness customers in a moment of crippling indecision thinking about which of the 50 odd flavors they should order. It's not easy to keep a store clean and at times I'm thrown a complete curve ball like a lack of ice on opening day.
And I love every minute of it.
