Three Door Cooler- Chapter 2 The Purchase

The Purchase
A few days went by and we were told that her daughter-in-law was in town with all the books. I looked through the books, looking at the bottom line. Advertised in the ad was made in the store was $18,000-$24,000 per month all cash sales. I saw the dailies and the beginning and of the last days month were the best for strong purchases. The slower months were the cooler ones, and around the holidays, December being the exception. She told me, people tend to get more money at the end and start of the month. That makes sense to me since people get paid the 1st and 15th usually. I asked why Tanya wanted out and she said it’s because her husband was dying of cirrhosis of the liver and needed her full attention. They also wanted to move closer to her many grandkids, so they decided to put up their house for sale too. Fair enough, I thought.

I talked to a family member about fronting me a loan for the store and space. K made a good case. $300/month and room to build a commercial kitchen. We were sure there were many people to hire in the area, so that won’t be a problem. Tanya, said she has a helper that works the store. She gets paid x amount of $/hour. Buying the store, I would be new management, but not want to fire someone because the new kid is in town. Besides, she knows the customers by name, becoming an important asset to our business. I would make my money back in the first month with hopes of the sales in the store. The rest would be gravy on the other side, with hopes of building our product empire.

We negotiated the price, she came down on the price, making it more affordable. After all, it was a cash deal instead of owner financing. K drew up paperwork making it somewhat legal if something goes awry. We had the same lease paperwork done with the landlady behind the store. This is who gets the $300, no deposit, only cash by the 5th of the month. It was a steal. I signed the paperwork, she signed also, 2 witnesses present. I immediately wanted to do business, since there were limited stock on the shelves. A sparingly cigarette preference, barren groceries same with the beer selection. I decided to go to the store. I made a list of things to buy and went to Wally World. Remember, I just purchased the store and I haven’t yet applied for my permits. I was still riding her coattails on her permits to sell cigarettes and beer. That would come later within a few days.
I called the store and Tanya said, she has to call me back because of the gas ran out. I said to repeat that, she said the gas had run out. No gas to sell to the customers. The store had 2 metal tanks holding about 1500 gallons of fuel, one gas, one diesel. The diesel was not operating for sometime and required maintenance. The one in use was non-ethanol gasoline selling at $3.99/gallon. The gas was high as an elephant’s butt then, so no one batted an eye. She said she was on the phone with gas company about them coming out in a day or two. This would be my first expense.
I went back to my business of purchasing household staples for the store in multiples of 6. I was told how much beer and cigarettes to buy. I walked to the checkout aisle with the one that sold cigarettes. Now, I am a non smoker and had maybe tried a cigarette when I was 16. After nearly coughing up a lung, I decided that smoking is not for me. K doesn’t smoke either, family and friends don’t smoke, so I have no clue what it costs for pack or carton of cigarettes. I told the clerk that I needed soft and hard packs of the shorts. The clerk asked if I needed the 100s too. Mind you, this is my first purchase of cigarettes, and I’m in my early 40s. I said what’s a 100? Like 100 cigarettes? She laughed and said, “no, longer cigarettes, same price as the shorts.” I honestly thought there were 100 cigarettes in a pack. Silly me.
I packed up the car with new goods for the store and traveled about 17 miles to my destination. Along the way on the two lane road was in front of me a yellow school bus, stopping at every house letting the young ones off the bus. I was stuck behind this bus for nearly 45 minutes, with perishables in the back of the car. It’s not like you can go around a school bus, not this one at least. So nearly an hour back from town, I finally got back to the store. Tanya, K and her helper were there to help unload the car and fill the shelves.
I took the opportunity to use the bathroom, since I had to pee like a rushing racehorse and stuck behind a school bus moving at a snail’s pace. I walked through the fugly green door, found 2 bathrooms. Both were the size of a broom closet. The toilet stood on a wooden frame with no tile. The toilet paper was on the back of the toilet, just enough room to drain the dragon and get up to wash my hands. The sink, you could touch if you were sitting on the toilet. The size of sink was one in an RV or pop-up camper. I finished and flushed the commode and proceeded to wash my hands. I looked and saw no soap or paper towels for washing. This immediately made sense to me since the sink was not hooked up properly or at all. No water came from sink, but there was certainly water for the toilet, which overflowed and cascaded down the wooden frame onto the OSB flooring. I had an “Oh Shit” moment. Cursing under my breath and went to the hand washing sink along the outside wall to take care of finishing my “business”. Once I had clean hands, I loaned a hand to help put things away. I went into the walk in, to organize the beer just purchased and noticed that the cooler was reading at 48 degrees. Again, WTH? I thought it was another thing that was broken but Tanya said that could easily be adjusted with the thermostat inside. She had it cooler since it was cold out and it could save money she thought.
So into 30 minutes of signing the paperwork, the gas ran out. Hours later, the toilet overflowed and the large walk in cooler was reading unreasonable temperatures for proper refrigeration.

While I was out on my errand/food run purchase, K handled the money part with Tanya. She said she trusted him that everything was there and never counted it in front of her. The trusting person K is, took her word. Later a phone call was made to him privately that he shorted her $700. He swore he counted it numerous times before their transaction for the store which he did privately in the vacant grey room and prior to coming to the store. Something smells in Denmark as my father says.

Without question we said we would work up the money in the next week or so, so we can get some sales. The purchases for the gas and goods were not cheap. I was chomping at the bit to get the other side built. In the interim, we saw on the books a column for Deli along with a button on the cash register. The white butcher paper hung lonely on the wall behind the counter along with a vastness of counter space. Tanya also mentioned a commercial meat slicer that would make some money to sell sandwiches and deli meat. There were even plastic bags like the grocery store provides for fresh cold cuts. We were told we had this meat slicer included in the store price, only to find that it was rummaged by the owner’s husband once purchased by us. No slicer for the new owners.
One by one, smells were getting fishier. Tanya said she would help us for a few days get started. Help, I thought, meant actual help. Like help a brother out kind of help, the Christian way. Oh no, she not only wanted the money she said “we shorted her” and get paid for the time to help us. We also had her hired her helper to help too. Tanya said she had enough of the store and was going to come back for her stuff another day. WTH? She came back taking anything that wasn’t nailed down. Some things belonged to her, paperwork, etc. But once a store has been sold, we thought that we bought it all. She came back for the chairs that we sat on and the portable heater in the building. Now mind you that she said she included the commercial meat slicer in the sale, only to renege on that too. We drew the line on the coffeemaker she wanted to steal under from us too. It quickly got ugly. I didn’t want to exchange words so I just diffused from arguing. Like the saying goes “fool me once shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.” This place is starting to leave a bad taste in my mouth, but, I can’t let one person get me down. I have too much work to do.