Michelle

So this incredibly attractive young woman came into the store recently; I spotted her when she was almost to the back of the store obviously looking for something, so I did what any customer-service oriented hardware clerk would do - I approached her and asked if I could help her find anything.  And as it turns out, I could.

She was looking for two items:  screw-eyes and key chains, both of which we carry.  We were standing just around the corner from the screw-eyes so I took her there first and showed her the selection - we have individual items and packages in various sizes and quantities.  She looked at them briefly and then said she was looking for a LOT of screw-eyes to make gifts for a wedding party (she's the bride)- she thought she needed 300, or so.  Well by retail standards, that's a lot of screw-eyes so I began to think in terms of what I could order for her and what kind of pricing I could give her on a bulk order.  I was pessimistic that I would be able to find a sufficient quantity at an affordable price, but we set about finding out what size screw-eye she would want, and that's when things got weird.

We rummaged around in the drawers with the individual screw-eyes and found one that she thought would be perfect for her project - they cost 23 cents each and were not available in bulk - at least that's what I thought.  I don't know why I pulled the drawer all the way out to see if there was any overstock in the back, as there never is, but I did anyway.  And there were three boxes there, each containing 100 screw-eyes of the exact size she had picked out - that cannot be just a coincidence.

Buoyed by this stroke of good luck (?) with the screw-eyes, we walked back to the key chain section to look for split-rings of a suitable size to go with the screw-eyes.  We sell a number of sizes ranging from pretty small to pretty big, and none of them are available in bulk quantities; but as we stood there looking at the selection I spied the inventory of "freebies" that we give away when we cut new keys for customers - we buy them in quantities of 1000 and of course they were a perfect match for the screw-eyes Michelle had already picked out.  So it seemed we had stumbled upon exactly the products she needed and they were available in the store in the quantities she desired.  I would have said that this was "mission impossible" but somehow it happened.

Michelle took a sample screw-eye and key chain home to see how they would work for her project, and today she came in to show me the results - of course, they were perfect!  I had known they would be, so I already had packaged everything up (at a very affordable price), and when I rang up the sale I told her that I hoped this would be a very good omen for her marriage, as she surely has someone looking out for her.  She was very gracious and even invited me to her golden wedding anniversary, but I'm pretty sure that even my guardian angel is not that good - but I promised that I'll be there for her silver anniversary!

Now if I can just get this ear-worm to go away:
http://www.youtube.com/embed/nfWVKQoRXhk"