OUCH OUCH OUCH!!!! 
I have a very painful boo boo today.
Okay wait, let me back up here a bit first. Every 2 weeks I am prepping and throwing my Avon brochures. At least 500, sometimes up to 1000 depending on a number of things. This is a process of stamping each one on the space on the back with my name, phone number and website for my store. I also hand date each and every one. Then if there is an insert, and there nearly always is, I stuff them all. Then I put each in a plastic bag, roll it like a newspaper and rubber band it. Needless to say this takes a number of hours to accomplish, anywhere form 4-8 depending on the number I am processing for distribution. My hands are SO sore by the time I am finished that I look forward to the day I am making enough to hire students to do this task.
Often the process of preparing these books is done along with my mom and sister. We gather, stack up our boxes of catalogs, then go through the prep process while watching our favorite TV shows a few nights a week. It is much more pleasant a task in the company of others.
On distribution day I load up my car with 6-10 large boxes of the rolled brochures and head out. These boxes weigh a LOT and I am out of shape and never properly lift so add a back ache to the hands. I drive along through various neighborhoods with my driver’s window down (this ought to be a treat come winter) and I go slow, tossing a brochure onto each driveway. I have some streets that I frequent due to gaining customers on them, others I pick that I’ve never thrown on before. I don’t come home until all of the brochures are distributed. This takes only an hour to an hour and a half. There are many reps that think this method is wrong, that I should hang them on the door handles or even knock on doors and meet the potential clients. I say that this method works just fine, and besides I know what it is like to be in the middle of something and have the doorbell ring. If they want Avon they will call and we will meet!
So, today I loaded the car and headed out on my rounds. About half way through I received my severe ouchie. I was pulling the rolled books from the box, in a hurry, and depositing them in my lap. I have very long nails (yep you see where this is going) that are acrylic as I cannot grow them myself. I wasn’t being careful and jammed my hand into the box. I’ve done this hundreds of times without issue, but this time I did it at just the WRONG angle. I snapped the nail on my birdie finger (that one we so like to use to inform other drivers when they are #1). Not only did it snap but it tore the real nail beneath it, off the nail bed, about a quarter of the way down my natural nail. I uttered quite the string of obscenities that would have made a trucker blush. Sadly the nail was still hanging on by a piece of the nail bed and now was bleeding.
I stopped the car and pulled off the broken piece, followed by a few more choice, not-family-friendly words. Thankfully I had a band-aid in my purse (I have everything in there, once winning a contest for the most items on a given list, in my purse, including an unidentifiable object). So now I am typing with the injured digit wrapped in a bandage, which is very awkward with mostly a stub and the other fingers having rather long nails. I’m so ticked at myself, as it will be weeks before that finger can have a nail on it again. SIGH….
Oh well, the day wasn’t a loss, all 600 books were distributed, already have one new customer from this toss round, and signed up a new recruit for my team.
By the way, if you’d like to start living the life of an Avon Lady yourself, join my team. Doesn’t matter where you live I can sign you up, train you (live video etc) and help you make a nice living (decide what that is and you can earn it). Just go to Start Avon and enter the code: BREDESTEGE-GARD and for $20 you too can make money and have some interesting stories to write about! You will also receive top notch support from me, as your upline, as I take good care of my recruits.
Marti Gardner 