From cool to suck in 2.3 seconds

Things seemed to be going so well. Spring had arrived, I personally dressed Claudia Christian in a corset and I was making some money. Then, someone turned the knob on the dial of my life from 'groovy' to 'suck' to 'waaaaay suck'. Let me 'splain.

When you see me at a con, or a Ren Faire, doing my thing. That's the easy part. Even when its 37 frickin degrees and the wind is attempting to transport both me and my tent to the land of fucking Oz, THAT is still the easy part. The hard part is all the shit that has to get done to get me there, set up and ready to rock. I spend far too many hours searching the internets and various publications to find venues for my business to sell at. Once I find a show that I've never done before, I need to check its website, determine if it looks promising, check its date, see what media guests (if any) are attending. How much is the fee? How far away is it? I spend a crapload of time doing this stuff so that I don't waste time and money doing a show like the Four Winds Ren Fair in Tyler Texas (The Gold fucking standard for suck-ass shows and my greatest mistake).

Luckily, once you've done a show and its turns out well, you know to keep it in mind for next year. Such was the case with Marcon. I've attended for years and last year we did good sales. I was keen to do it again this year. The trouble is, you need to keep track not only of the show dates, but the various dates you need to have paperwork and payments submitted by. I dutifully submitted my application and vendor fee back in February but was getting antsy that I'd heard nothing back. Now I know why. It appears that I submitted my application 2 weeks too late. They would have told me this but they also seem to have LOST MY APPLICATION AND CHECK.

Now I have a pretty big hole in my schedule. It's likely too late to get into another convention at this late a date. I'm scrambling to find something. I've pickled up a Klingon event near Akron this weekend but its a crap shoot. I have no one to blame but myself and that is a pretty shitty feeling.

In a last ditch Hail Mary I am contacting other merchants at Marcon to see if any of them will sell me one of their tables. I have a lead. It might cost me a corset (as an incentive/bribe) but its worth a shot. Keep your fingers crossed.