Friend Me?
We are at the point in the fall semester that we have MU journalism students flocking to PJP Buttonwood to practice interviews, videos, photography, and on occasion, a convergence of all three mediums. It isn't terribly uncommon for us to have three or four students a week hanging out with us during the day and quizzing us from a list of tediously prepared questions while recording our responses on their iPhones. We are pretty used to telling our story and answering the most common questions, but sometimes a student will surprise us with a totally unexpected question. Last week, one asked me: "What is the most unexpected part of opening your business?" And here is the honest truth...I had no idea how many new friends we would make at PJP Buttonwood. Here are some of the stories of the kindness we've been shown at PJP and evidence that we are perhaps the very luckiest girls in the world...
- We receive countless number of kind comments directly on the blog and on Facebook about the content of the blog...even when I share our shortcomings, our failures, our mishaps, and our self-doubt. Some mornings, we read over those comments together and are completely humbled by the support. And amped up for another day to tackle World Pie Domination because of your support. #WPD
- Not long ago, a blog reader (and long-term friend) mailed us a gift card to Starbucks so that we would get something in the mail besides bills. I spent a lot of time thinking about whether I am nice enough to ever do that for someone...or to actually deserve it in the first place. And probably no on both counts, but she saw past all that and sent a small ray of sunshine to accompany our daily stack of bills. And while we appreciate the gift card immensely, that she thought of us at all made us feel all the joy of a piping hot milk chocolate mocha on a nippy fall morning. Now I'm looking for someone to send me a note that says "DOWN WITH ECOLAB" so that I can feel continually justified in my righteous dishwasher-related indignation.
- We know things about our customers...their sick mothers, their newly adopted children, their travel plans, their home improvement plans, their favorite pies, their feelings about coffee, their feelings about wine...that make our friendships mutual. A lot of our customers have friended my personal Facebook page and it makes me so happy. It is like a little note that says "hey, I don't just like pie, I like you too...and now I'm willing to look at a lot of random posts about your dog to prove it." I bet they would friend Jeanne too, but they know us well enough to know that Jeanne doesn't really Facebook.
- Last Friday during our DAY OF EPIC FAILURE, a good customer knew that I had to whip up a mocha frappuccino costume for my nine-year-old daughter by 4pm (and if you are thinking, "huh, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree in that household", you would be totally correct.) The customer actually offered to go and get the supplies that I needed while I stayed at PJP and tried to keep the pie production flowing. If I hadn't been so busy scratching my anxiety-induced hives, I probably would have cried from all the kindness.
- Today, a customer stopped by with a gift for Jeanne and I. She likened us to "pie-rates" given our rogue-sail-the-seven-seas approach to running our business. And like all legit pirates (or pie-rates), we needed eye patches. So she just made us some...complete with lattice. I know, right?
And so look, obviously this post doesn't begin to touch on the hundreds of acts of kindness we've been shown. Nothing escapes us and each warm wish for our business, each spark of a new friendship, each kind act, each moment taken to read the blog, each time you tell a friend about our pies, and each time you let us be a part of your life...well, all those things make our hearts almost burst with gratitude.
We could never say it enough, but thank you. Thank you for being a part of this with us. World Pie Domination starts here...