I was just thinking about the
procrastinator's store today and thought I'd
re post this. :)
I've thought many times of starting a procrastinator's
web store. Most of the time I think about this when I have put something off long enough that it's going to cost me something - money, my dignity, or just a lot more time.
The first time I thought of this concept was in graduate school. At that time, the
internet was either just getting started or hadn't started yet so I thought it would be a good store for Boston's
Faneuil Hall, right alongside the teddy bear store and the heart store.
My grad school roommate and I used to get the most amazing projects finished during the week term papers were due. We called it "creative procrastination". You should have seen the beautiful meals we would cook and the home decorating we could accomplish during term paper week! Our place settings were worthy of a Martha Stewart Living magazine spread. True works of art!
During one of these creative flights of fancy, I dreamed up the Procrastinator's Store. At this store you could find different kinds of alarm clocks - all set ahead of course. We would carry as many different types of calendars and day planners as there are available. One item I know would be a hot seller for the true procrastinator would be the "I'm Sorry" card. And there would have to be all kinds of belated birthday cards. Also, at the Procrastinator's Store, you could buy this year's calendar well into the Fall of the year.
Of course, the sales people would have to reject the notion that "poor planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part" and be ready to hurry! hurry! hurry! at a moment's notice. Really, to be able to work in the store they would have to be somewhat codependent because any healthy person would move on after about a week of the stress of working with procrastinators in their frenzy of "fixing this problem". But not our sales people! They would delight in their ability to help people "who really need them".
One other thing that we would offer would be self help seminars. Of course, we would never be able to guarantee the number of people who would attend the seminars because the true procrastinator would not sign up by the due date and would come in at the last minute begging to be allowed to attend. For this reason, the store would have to have a very fast copier for any handouts the speaker would need. This part of the
Faneuil Hall store would not be possible on the website so our
web store would offer seminars with "late registration fees", "late, late registration fees", and "if you hurry you can just make it registration fees". Our participants would pay a premium for their seminars because procrastinators are used to things costing more when you wait until the last minute.
Of course, many of our actual buyers would be people who love procrastinators. Procrastinators shop a lot, but frequently don't get around to actually buying something. For this reason, we might give into crass capitalism and actually stock tasteless quote signs that say things like "poor planning on your part does not
constitute an emergency on my part". I know this would only serve to fuel the antagonism between the procrastinator and his loved ones and I hope we would resist this urge, but we
would need to actually bring in some money so this might be a necessary evil.
We might be able to avoid such meanness though due to another terrific money making idea for the
web store - selling advertising. No one clicks on
advertisements like a procrastinator looking for a diversion. The Procrastinator's
Web store site would produce more hits from the on screen advertising that the average website so we would be able to charge a prime rate to put an ad on our site.
Well, all of this is a great idea. Some one should do it. Maybe I will . . . next year.
