XIX

It's been a long time, right?

Happy holidays, btw—fuck, I've been writing this for a while.

Anyway, two days ago I went to the bank to make a deposit. It was 10 pm, and there was one person there; he was using the only ATM that received deposits. I hate when that happens bc I then look like a thief or something for just standing there and not using the other ATM's. Sometimes the person turns around and I tell them that I just want to make a deposit, and some other times they just don't notice me—or maybe they just pretend—until they are leaving, and I then go straight to the ATM.

This time the person there turned around.

And it was an old classmate from college.

He was ecstatic, and I was pretty happy too, ngl. He was one those people who're always joking around, and maybe teasing people, but in a fun, friendly way, you know. There was never ill intent in his jokes.

From then most part went exactly like you think it went:

"Hey, bro. what's up!!!", he yelled with a big smile on his face and approached me.

"Heyyy!!!"

We hugged effusively.

"Holy shit, bro. From all places we could meet. WTF?!"

"Yeah, I know. It's crazy".

And then he asked that obligatory questions: "so, what you up to? What are you doing?"

Those questions have benn terrifying me for years. Why? Bc my answer's always the same: a lie. I would always tell them that I was working in the family business; I mean, what else I was supposed to say? That I've been doing nothing? That I've been wasting years of my life on nothing at all, using my literary ambitions as a coping mechanism? That I had a couple of jobs before, but I couldn't even keep them for 6 months?

Those questions always reminded me of my reality, of my constant failures, of the house of cards I've been building to distract myself, of the fact that I'm still the same kid I was during college.

But this time was a little bit different.

This time I proudly told the truth.

I guess I haven't told you either.

Sorry.

Anyway, the truth is 1) I'm still selling Funko Pops, but 2) now I'm an investor in a Showroom. If you don't know, a showroom is a store where we rent space to little businesses. Let's say you sell notebooks or something, but you don't have the inventory of the earnings to rent and fill one store or one place at the mall, so you come with us and only rent a shelf or two for a small fee.

We opened in the middle of November, so we didn't miss the holiday shopping and the local equivalent of Black Friday—it lasts the full weekend, and its roughly called "the good weekend". But we're far from being ready: we barely painted the place; the furniture we're currently using is really old and a bit shitty; there's a lot of space we're wasting; we're still working on the name and logo, and bc of that we barely have any advertising; we haven't decided yet in the interior decorations and design. Also, we're still in the process of getting the store's license—according to the law, we have a year to get it, but we shouldn't take that long—we don't have a proper checkout system, or a unified inventory system, and we don't know exactly how much the rent fees are going to be, or how many space we'll have when we finish remodeling, even though we already have a couple people interested in renting.

So, yeah, we're far from done.

Anyway, let me tell you the whole story:

Back in 2019 my uncle opened a store near my house. The place was owned by the family, and we've been renting it for a while. In 2020 because of the pandemic, he closed it, and never opened it back even when he could—that store was more like a hobby for him. In September he opened another store somewhere else, and my dad convinced him that, since he wasn't interested in the first store anymore, and it have been practically abandoned, my sister-in-law and me could use it.

It was a surprise for us bc we never told him to do that, or didn't even think about it, but we couldn't miss the opportunity.

We contacted our uncle, he met my brother and me at the shop and showed us the place—my sister-in-law couldn't make it bc she has to take care of my 2-year nephew, and she's pregnant too. It was really big and needed a lot of remodeling: it seems that at the time my uncle had a friend that made big vinyl stickers, and he basically covered everything with those. Also, like I said earlier, the furniture he built is kinda shitty—the shelves are uneven and tiny, a lot of screw's tips come out of the wood, some sliding glass doors easily move out of place, and some locks are missing—and everything but behind all those stickers was painted black.

He told us we could make all the renovations we wanted, and also that we should make a contract where we pay a symbolic amount, just to be able to register our business in the IRS and to get whatever service we wanted there—like internet even though the one we have at home reaches there.

So, we started the renovations right away—and we also made a contract, which he hasn't signed yet btw. It was a pain in the ass, especially bc I was the one doing most of that stuff.

I started dusting the entire place bc it had been abandoned for years. After that I swept and mopped the floor—there were like 20 death roaches in the bathroom floor, near the sinkhole. There's a little attic/warehouse filled with empty boxes, so I checked them out one by one, threw away most of them and kept the rest—I unfolded them to save some space, but maybe I should throw them away too; we're never gonna use them tbh. I bought a couple shelves and put them there.

I also removed most of the stickers—and we hire some guys to remove the rest—they were too big, and we were afraid we would damage the wall when we removed them—and to paint the place—especially the ceiling bc it was too high up.

They didn't paint all the place bc they wanted to charge us more, and we could paint the rest no problem.

And that's what we did. My brother helped me out painting the back room and half of a couple walls. At the time it was November already, meaning we didn't have much time left until the good weekend and the holiday season. But my brother and my sister-in-law had a vacation planned a few days later.

I ended up painting the rest by myself, and by the rest I mean the shelves. It took a while: walls are plain surfaces, and shelves are, well, full of shelves that you gotta paint individually and multiple times.

It's a lengthy process ngl.

And I was getting tired of doing most of the job.

After that I moved all my funkos there and put them on shelves. My sister-in-law and her associate put most of their shoes in the warehouse, and the rest on display.

At the time it was the second week of November. Just days before "the good weekend."

I ended up opening on Wednesday bc if I didn't do it no one will.

Little after that my sister-in-law and her associate—well, she's also my associate now—told me that we should split the day in two 4-hour turns. Since we open from 11 am to 7 pm—in the holiday season I opened until 8 o'clock—we could divide the day in a morning turn from 11 am to 3 pm and an evening turn from 3 to 7 pm. They chose the morning one, and I'm here in the evenings.

Right now we're a little more organized, but again, we're far from done.

The job is just waiting btw. Waiting for the customers to arrive, waiting for them to get inside—sometimes they just watch the shelves from outside—waiting for them to check whatever catches their eye, waiting for them to ask you its prices, waiting for them to try the shoes on, waiting for them to decide if they want to buy the figure(s)/shoe(s), waiting for them to pay.

But I have time to read or write, so I guess it's ok.

I just hope this really helps me to make this project grow; ngl this last year wasn't as good as the one before even when I got more than twice the inventory. Maybe that's bc I been focusing more and more on buying the latest models that everyone has. I should focus more on vaulted models as I used to.

But it's way easier to order the new ones from an official wholesaler, and the figures are way cheaper. The problem is that the market is full of them.

But most of the Showroom's customers want cheap figures and doesn't care if it's vaulted or not or the conditions of the box or which sticker it has. They only care about the character and the price.

It seems I need to find a balance then.

Anyway, I didn't tell my old classmate all of this, for obvious reasons. Only that I've working on the showroom.

It felt good tho; it's like I'm finally doing something with my life.