The virtues of mom and pop

I was in Salem on a quick business trip on Monday and I decided to do a little impulse shopping. Unfortunately, both my favorite restaurant - the India Palace downtown - and favorite fabric store in Salem - Greenbaums - were both closed by the time I got out of my meeting (actually, the India Palace is closed all day on Mondays). So, I ate at my second favorite restaurant - one of the Muchos Gracias chain's small eateries - and I drove over to Craft Warehouse to pick up some of the Meltie Feltie felt squares that I use to make the felt pears. I also ended up finding the fabric I had been looking for to make a little wall hanging for Claire.

I was having some trouble finding all of the fabrics for the quilt and so I carried the bolts of fabric that I had found up to the cutting counter and set them down and asked for some help finding the others. And here is where the virtues of independent fabric stores really shine. The woman at Craft Warehouse was totally rude to me and acted as if I had invaded her personal space by putting down the bolts of fabric on her cutting counter. She reluctantly and impatiently directed me right back to the stacks of fabric I had come from and left me to hunt for nonexistent fabrics. This uncaring attitude would never be found Greenbaums or Sisters. The employees at these stores are always so helpful and they know their store's fabric inventories like the back of their hands.

So, I think that the moral of the story is that I just have to shop at the mom and pop hand-craft supply stores where the people appreciate your business and they are genuinely interested in what you are creating. Along those same lines, I have stopped shopping at Wal-Mart because the employees don't care about service and the experience of shopping there always leaves me frustrated or angry. Why give your money to a store that doesn't care about your experience or its employees? Wal-Mart is certainly convenient and inexpensive but you get what you pay for and I want our money to do more in our local community and the broader community of the Northwest.