Ever the intrepid scrounger, husband Dan has come up with our most eye-catching street sign yet. We always find interesting stuff thrown out in the alley behind our shop and they often end up repurposed in our shop as shelf adornments or book ends, but I think Dan has outdone himself with his mobile street sign advertising our March-long Spring Cleaning Sale:
A rusty supermarket cart now sports a shelf of mounted beauty school mannequin heads (stamped with the names Debra, Sam (like our store cat!) and Deluxe Debra), festively adorned for St. Patrick's Day and expertly bungee-corded to the lamp post at the vacant lot at the main intersection of our fair village of Schuylerville. Dan or I take the Debras in each night for fear that they may be kidnapped by drunken patrons of the nearby sports bar and this certainly earns us some rubbernecking from passing motorists. It was a bit surreal the other day to see a passing car of nuns in full habit do some synchronized gawking at my lovely trio as I was taking them on their morning stroll.
Judging from the number of remarks we're getting in the shop, this marketing madness is working well. I have had several local first-time customers tell me that the Heads got them inside our doors despite the fact that we've been around for 15 years and have book carts, flags and stacks of books on our sidewalk whenever weather permits.
We're now planning our Easter makeover for the Debras, and may even continue this street side show longer if it continues to draw in new customers. Certainly, a Bastille Day tableau could be interesting. And the Debras are waterproof.
In a village that sports three storefront leg lamps a la A Christmas Story, another vacant lot adorned with a selection of painted retro bicycles, and a hybrid horse/cow sculpture pastured into a landing pad of grass on the sidewalk next to our shop each spring, we think the Debras blend right in.
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