You have to really wonder who leaks these news tidbits to the wire services and what their motivations are. This was on news radio this morning. A recent poll determined that 65 percent of us are not going to give a Xmas present to the boss. BUT, it seems that co-workers fare better. A whopping 35% of us are going to give a Xmas present to a co-worker. I can only shake my head in amazement. You do the math.

Had a chat with mom, who is closing up her retail operation and retiring. Decided that I'm not ready to throw in the towel on my business quite yet. No, I haven't got a clue how I'm supposed to stay afloat in this economic climate. But she described the chaos at her house trying to hold all the leftover inventory. Heck, I've got furniture down at the store because there's no place for it at home. Then I envisioned cramming a hundred guitars and boxes of saxophones in my bedroom. It's not gonna' work. I better darn well find somebody to buy the things.

For me, there are three shopping days left. Last year, the Friday before Xmas was a record-breaker. Yesterday was no different than a normal day in July. Sold two cheap guitars. I don't think many of you should expect any gifts over $120 this year. That's the largest expenditure that has been made in my store this season. On the plus side, I bought a lot of cheap guitars (or as we fondly say in the industry, ISO's. Instrument Shaped Objects). On the minus side, this isn't like Walgreen's. Most of my inventory costs somewhere upward of $120, and with my slim margins, I need to sell hundreds of ISO's today to make the rent.