Yesterday the inevitable happened. Ash finally broke down about the store. I knew it was coming. She’s been putting on the brave face and trying to make the best of a bad situation, but yesterday she couldn’t hold back anymore.

First off, no news on the home front yet. Just like all things business-related, everything takes ten times longer than you wish it would. So we’ve made all these different plans for what we can do in each of the various scenarios. I think we’re down to about ‘Plan L’ now.

So yesterday we had to go back over there to check out a few things regarding what the most likely course of action we are going to take will be. And at that moment it really began to hit home that after the two years of non-stop prep work and a year of being open and putting our blood and sweat into this thing, there was a good chance that we were going to have to shut it down.

We began talking about the little details such as the weeks spent making product cards. How we spent literally months working to pick the exact product mix so that each product was a quality unique item and we didn’t end up with a store of 100 rabbit vibrators. Defining what was just the right look to provide privacy, but also be open and inviting. How a ‘fixture sale’ might work to sell off all the antique furniture we spent weekend after weekend trolling thrift stores for. What pieces would we like to keep and what pieces would we like to sell. Depressing stuff.

So then on the way home after quite a bit of time in silence, she broke down and cried for the first time. It was tough, because there is practically nothing I could say, other than regardless of what happens we’ll bounce back and live to fight another day.

Make no mistake about it, Silver Stars isn’t going away. One way or another, we will still be around bringing dongs to the masses. Whether it’s through home parties, the website, or some other avenue, we will still be in the toy business. This is just another chapter, but at that moment, the gravity of the way things were turning out made it a bitter pill to swallow. If ever there had been a moment in this whole thing when I thought, “Screw it, I’ll spend every last penny I ever make fighting this thing”, that was it. Naturally that doesn’t make any sense as it would end up being a lose-lose situation where we win the fight, they don’t revoke our business license right now and then they refuse to renew it next year. But when she’s sitting there with tears running down her face, logic be damned.

Of course we’re still waiting to hear back from the lawyers before we make any decisions, but yesterday was a dark day indeed as we realized that there may be no other choice than to close down the store.

Filed under: Silver Stars