Zayn Said Whaaaaa?

In the hopes of keeping the shop alive for the rest of their summer break, the Minions were all to happy to send me off to BKK on a buying trip. But as we finished lunch, one Minion started to change her tune a little.

Bible: Teacha I think you cannot go Bangkok.
Teacha Katie: Why Bible?
I think going alone you cannot. How do you go to the airport and hotel.
I’ll drive my motorbike to the airport and walk to my hotel.
But very far and very much raining
Yep, its not ideal
And then when you get to Bangkok, how going to Chinatown? Make taxi?
Nope, I’ll take the bus.
Local Bus?! Oh no I think you cannot only Thai people and wary hot, smell bad.
Well I would have to agree with you that it smells like a sun baked sushi buffet and I’m somewhat unwelcome, but its sitting right in our price range at .50 cents.
(Silent laughing, hand over mouth shaking head) I cannot imagine you ride local bus in Taylor Swift outfit to The Chinatown. Will you take a selfie?
Only of someone else does it first.
Yesterday I am playing on the Twitter and I see One Direction make fighting. I am amazed when this happen……but now today I think I am more amazed about go to Bangkok.

There you have it folks, more amazing than One Direction. I’ll add that to my resume should I ever need one again.

Thanks to all of your support, the trip doubled our sales for the shop. The Minions are very anxious to see what you liked and get to invoicing but it will have to wait because tomorrow is Munchkin time and we need to prep, pray and (hopefully) sleep.

While I was at the airport bookstore I read JK Rowling’s book Very Good Lives (It’s her commencement speech from Harvard graduation 2008 can be read in about 15 minutes). Her themes were the importance of failure and imagination, which coincidently (or not) were also the takeaway points for our wacky half baked experiment of pursuing the shop.

She said that while failure is by far one of the most important of all human experiences, it’s also often and easily avoided through apathy, which is a failure in itself. And that imagination gives us the ability to empathize, which drives us to enact change on behalf of those who for whatever reason, are struggling to do so themselves.

She described literal nightmares about her own helplessness in combating injustices she witnessed through working with Amnesty International. And in a sentiment I share, says she would envy people who close themselves off from failure and imagination except that she doesn’t believe those people have any fewer nightmares than she does. Leaving your world small and self centric is a monster of a completely different kind.

So while I am not under any delusion that you Make Our Day Shop shoppers couldn’t have found similar clothes at the mall this week, I am grateful that you actively chose to exercise your uniquely human ability to empathize with someone you have never met (and likely never will) and imagine a better life for them. Profit or not, there is no failure in that.

You Made Our Day in more ways than one. Khap Khun Kaaaaa Shoppers.

Still up for grabs: