Property of PJP

The back doors at each of our stores are vastly different environments. At Nifong, there is parking immediately outside the back door, while at West, the back door faces directly to busy West Worley. At Nifong, we share the back of the store space with Hy-Vee semi-trucks and UPS trucks. At West, we share the back sidewalk with all of our neighbors and we all share dumpster space. In general, the sidewalk is well maintained and because the space is significantly newer than Nifong, it looks much nicer over on that side of town.

At Nifong, the door is completely blown out. It locks - thankfully - but not long ago, I got my key stuck in the lock and had to call a locksmith to come and get my key OUT. (As a side note, he said I was one of the very few calls in his work career to get a key OUT inside of dealing with a lock having no key.). There is a kickstand on the door to prop it open while we take out trash to our dumpster but it has been broken for at least over a year. You might be wondering why we don’t have a better backdoor and that’s because I’m way too cheap to spend $1500 on a backdoor for a property I don’t own. (And don’t kid yourself, the landlord wouldn’t replace the door if the door was the lone mechanism to keep the entire building from collapsing.)

At West, the door is much nicer but has two flaws. One, there’s no keyed entrance on the backdoor. So, when I’m there early in the morning, I have to stand at the front door and unlock it. It’s not the worst when the sun rises early, but it is completely creepy when it is dark at 6:30 am and it feels like everyone blowing through to McDonald’s can see me unlocking the door. The employee only/delivery driver of Nifong is just more secluded.

But also, the back door at West doesn’t have a kickstand to keep it open. And before you email me and tell me that I could easily add one, THAT IS PROBABLY TRUE. But I bet there is nothing easy about picking the kickstand. And even if I could order one, it probably has to be drilled in and then you have to make sure it is level and I’m a lawyer turned business owner, not a skilled craftsman turned business owner.

And this is all just to say that when we take the trash out over there, we have to use a rock to prop the door open. And that’s certainly not glamorous, but neither is taking the trash out. Over the almost three years we’ve been there, we’ve cycled through a lot of rocks. A few have broken when the door slams shut, but for the most part, the rocks are stolen.

Ellery is taking a class this semester at Mizzou as part of her Architecture studies that includes a lot of building. A few weeks ago, they learned to make forms for pouring concrete. There was a fair amount of mixed concrete leftover and her professor said she could make whatever she wanted. And because she is a small business kid at heart, she immediately knew PJP NEEDS A CUSTOM ROCK. And she made us one. We are the luckiest to have her.

A few days in and the rock is holding up well. The pink is the best color and the PJP branding on all sides - except for the one that threatens prosecution to the fullest extent of the law if stolen - makes this the best custom item I’ve ever owned.