When Life Hands You Lemons
Okay, this is literally one of my favorite quotes, if you add the the last two words to the quote to complete it to read, “When life hands you lemons, make lemonade.” For a while, my sister thought I made the quote up, which was cute and gave me far more clever credit than I deserve, but to continue with this day’s business lesson, let me say, the lesson today really has nothing to do with making lemonade. Well, I may make lemonade at some point, but let me get to the point of the lesson which sort of does have something to do with lemons!
I’ve been wanting a tree for my loft for a while. Not just any tree, a special tree and so when I saw this tree, I was sold! I mean, who could resist those lemons?!
I imagined how happy I would be looking at my lemon tree everyday and yes, even making lemonade perhaps. Only problem was, I didn’t like the original pot this lemon tree was in, which was not, the pot in the picture! So I hunted all around the nursery, trying to find just the right pot, and thought I had found it, until I spotted this one! For just $30 more, it could be mine. I loved that it had that french style, vintage, aged, unique look in that beautiful turquoise blue, and when Austin was able to fit that perfect lemon tree, already laden with several ripe meyer lemons into the perfect pot, right price, right size, right color, I was delighted beyond words!
I arranged for delivery, gave him my credit card, and as I was abstractedly signing the receipt, I just happened to notice it was waaaayyyyy more than I had anticipated. Like more than $1000 more than I had anticipated. Yeah, I had thrown in a couple of rosemary plants, and a little accessory item that caught my eye, but $1000 worth? No way! There must be some mistake I told Austin. No, the pot was vintage and the price was correct, a $1000 more correct. But not correct for me, so I sadly cancelled my order, cancelled delivery, and cancelled my joy.
When Austin asked if I wanted to get the other pot instead, I had to say no. I had already seen the forbidden fruit, tasted the joy of that gorgeous blue pot. How could I now go with an inferior pot? No, I would just give up altogether. Dejected, sad, I got in my car and left. A couple of hours later, Austin called. He had checked his other store for pots with similar details BUT in the price range I was seeking and wanted to know if he could send me pictures. He did, and no, they weren’t really what I was looking for, but after sharing photos with my daughters whose taste I trust implicitly of the original blue pot and the pot I fell in love with, I found they liked the original pot best, without even knowing the huge price difference! So I feel delighted again! I’m in love with the lemon tree and will love the new much cheaper pot, and I realized, when life hands you lemons, look for something else to go with it. (And Lisa, I did make that one up!) And kudos to the salesperson who looks for alternatives and goes above and beyond. It makes for a very happy customer who looks for alternatives too.
xo, jan