Entrepreneurial spirit: alive and well in the burbs...

I can't remember if I've mentioned this already, but we're renovating our kitchen. Our designer is a former Israeli soldier and we're just a little scared of him. But he's doing his best to keep us on schedule, so I guess we're getting the tough love we've paid for.

Terry and I are both off from work this week and we're torturing ourselves with frustrating kitchen errands to stay in A's good graces. Over the past two days, we have spent a disproportionate number of hours and mental effort attempting to pick out a faucet. We zig zagged all over Long Island from show room to show room and so far the only thing we've accomplished is confirming that we have unreasonably expensive taste. Put us in a room with 237 faucets and we zoom in on the one tucked away in the corner that is the most outrageously overpriced one in the room. The kind of price tag that would make my farm-raised grandfather spin in his grave. Neither one of us can bring ourselves to give in to the urge and just say, "In the grand scheme of the overall budget, it's not that big a deal..." I don't think we can bear the thought of being those people. The people with the cool looking faucet who are in hock up to their eyeballs. So the search continues.

We saw some curious things in our journeys through the suburbs yesterday. My favorite was this duo of stores in Huntington. The first was a themed store I've seen many times before and wondered how on God's earth these businesses stay viable. The picture is a little blurry, but I'm sure you get the idea...


Seconds after passing this treasure trove of bargains, we passed another store almost directly across the street. I can only assume it was launched after exhaustive research - no doubt including a thorough need-gap and SWOT analysis - indicated an open opportunity in the market. The owners of this store seized the day...


Unfortunately, the faucets we like would never be sold in the first store...