It's True

This time last year, I was at the Atlanta Gift Mart and on the search for cute merchandise for the yet-to-open PJP Nifong. This summer, we took a pass on traveling to the gift mart given the concerns with air travel and large gatherings during COVID-19. And honestly, we are a little sad since it is always a fun trip and a highlight of summer. Though, considering our county was in a shelter-in-place order not that long ago, I guess being able to leave the house and go somewhere non-essential is the true highlight this year. Perspective.

(We did have a vendor stop by today and she represents all sorts of lines of cute merchandise, including our new dough bowl candles from Lux Fragrances. We had the best time shopping for fall and Christmas for PJP. So I guess who even needs Atlanta when you can sit in your office and order things, with the bonus of yelling out the door to Team PJP that Coconut Custard can be made with regular flour and not self-rising flour? That can’t be done from 1,000 miles away.)

And after the shopping extravaganza, one of our food suppliers arrived with enough ice cream for 300 servings for our first PJP Ice Cream Social this Saturday. 300 seemed like a solid guesstimate based on Facebook event responses AND we probably couldn’t accommodate ice cream storage for more, even in our fancy two commercial freezer world. (Our favorite delivery guy came in first to ask if all the ice cream was actually for us before he hauled it all in because we’ve never ordered it before. 10 out of 10 stars for eyeing 300 servings of ice cream and noticing that while we do crazy things sometimes, we’ve never purchased ice cream in bulk prior to this week.)

Our other primary food supplier is offering a contest based on points that awards the qualifying customers with an all expenses paid trip to Mexico in January. And we all know that the way directly to my Enneagram Three competitive and overachieving heart is by offering me the opportunity to win something based on a points system. Though, after reading through the packet, I wondered…will anyone actually be able to travel to Mexico in January? Look, I noticed that they formally removed the salad bar at Hyvee and it alarmed me that we might never live in a salad bar nation again because of Coronavirus. And personally, I like a salad bar as a general rule and now we will just have fond memories of pay-by-the-weight salads.

But back to Mexico - I’m torn because the contest points are based on your growth from orders in previous periods AND certain products award you certain points. The point tally and qualification period ends at the end of October. I can’t decide if I want to win just because I’m competitive or because an all-expenses paid vacation sounds like a game show prize and I have game show prize winning envy. And once they gather all the winners and combine us all in a resort in Playa Mujeres, all we all just going to be an overly competitive bunch with secret Price Is Right dreams? Will we all discuss how we plotted our rise to free margaritas by strategically placing our orders for flour? Or will everyone basically ignore each other and act like we just won as a fluke? Interesting to consider, right?

Unless international travel is still banned and no one is going anywhere in January. Not even on a trip to the salad bar.