TMA Enterprises (whatever!)

The year that I graduated from high school (1988), my dad sold his law practice. He and my mom and two younger sisters went off to The University of the South (Sewanee), while I went off to the real University if the South...The University of Alabama. My dad went to seminary for three years and I went to Alabama for ,um, five years. While my parents were at Sewanee, my mom had twin boys (who just graduated from high school!) In other words, money was tight. But I wanted to go to The University of Alabama come hell or high water. So I did whatever I could think of to make a little money to pay for my tuition (okay...and sorority, and bar tabs...I've come a long way, I promise). Friends and family still tease me about all of my business ventures. They do make me laugh. Hope they make you laugh, too.

My very first door-to-door sales experience was selling trouble-doll barrettes for $10 a piece in Tutwiler dorm in Tuscaloosa. Do you remember trouble doll barrettes?? My mom ordered the dolls straight from Guatemala and hot-glued them onto barrettes. They were "the thing" to have (at least in T-town in 1988), along with those brightly covered woven concho belts, which I also sold at a later date. Once the concho belts were "in style", I would sell them at the sorority houses on Chapter Nights. This was a profitable business. College girls have more money than anybody and they'd just write their $10.00 check and hand it over.

Moving on...Every Valentine's Day, I would get the address lists from each sorority and send the girl's parents an opportunity to send their daughter a Valentine balloon bouquet for only $10.00. The balloons on the bouquets were small and could be blown up days in advance, packaged in large plastic bags until they were ready to be assembled, and assembled on Valentines Day on white balloon sticks stuck in a small white vase. This was a money maker!! But so hard and so time consuming! I don't think I ever slept on February 13th 1989, 1990, 1991, and 1992. God bless my sweet friends who helped me blow up all of those darn balloons!

Moving on...when fax machines were first "invented", I thought "facsimile" was pronounced "fax-a-meal", so I had this grand business plan to fax menus to downtown businesses (law offices, insurance companies, etc) each day before lunch with the restaurant's specials and possibly a coupon for the day. "Fax-A-Meal", I thought, was such a perfect play on words. I was so disappointed when I realized "facsimile" was not pronounced the way I wanted and needed it to be pronounced. But that didn't stop me! I kept the name and the business lasted for about 30 days. The restaurants couldn't understand why they were paying me $30 to fax their menus when they could do it themselves. Good point. Even though it was MY idea!

Moving on even further. "The Brown Bag Express". Felix "I thought I'd never forget his last name" and I hand wrote with black magic marker on the outside of brown paper bags:


Name______________

Choice:

___ Turkey sub

___ Ham sub

___ Turkey and Ham

Drink choice:

___Coke

___Sprite

___ Sweet Tea

We'd visit the construction sites on campus around 8:00 in the morning then we'd head to my apartment to assemble sub sandwiches for the construction crew! This was so much fun! But then the health department stepped in and shut us down. Oops.

Moving on...(this is so fun to me - remembering all this stuff I did!)Little Miss Manners. This was big time! I should totally do it now! By the time I introduced the world (ha!) to Little Miss Manners, my dad was an Episcopal priest in Atmore, Alabama. So...every weekend I drove to Atmore to teach manners, poise, and etiquette (stop laughing!) to 100 little girls, ranging in age from 6 years to 16 years old. I think it was a 6 week course and I think I charged $100.00 for the course. But that would mean I made $10,000. So maybe it was more like 50 girls. I can't remember. But I know I made some serious money. At least for a college kid trying to pay for school (and gasback and forth to Atmore!).

Oh - just remembered this one. I sold stoles through the mail! Stoles are those things that the Episcopal priests wear around their necks. They were ordered from the same company in Guatemala that made the trouble dolls and concho belts. I simply made a color copy of the stoles, included a letter to all of the Episcopal priests in the Gulf Coast Diocese that I was trying to put myself through school by selling stoles, and ...voila... a business was born. This particular business wasn't very successful, but I probably made a month's rent or so.

What else...I'm thinking. I'm sure there's more.

Of course! New Year's Eve baskets! I think I've posted about this before. I spray painted inexpensive baskets gold and filled them with black-eyed peas, cornbread, a tiny bottle of Tabasco, and a cellophane bag of rice. I tied it with purple and gold ribbon and attached this poem that I made up:
"In the South,
it is a tradition
to get your black-eyed pea nutrition.

So bake the bread
boil the rice
simmer the peas
and add some spice.

If you do all of this...your new Year will be extra NICE (or something like that!)

Y'all, I sold these door to door in the most affluent neighborhood in Tuscaloosa! That cracks me up! I don't guess there was much that embarrassed me. It does now.

I hope that's it. If you're reading this and can think of one that I haven't listed, do tell!

I'd like to say "I've come a long way", but the truth is, it's still in my blood! I like making and selling stuff! I don't know why! I like feeling creative. I like "a little business but not too much of one".

By the way, one of my sisters owns a multi-million dollar company that she built from the ground up, and another sister launched her own children's clothing line, www.marymichael.com (check it out!). My other sister (Vintage) has her hand in so many different businesses that I can't even list them all. Makes me wonder where I'd be if the health department hadn't shut down "The Brown Bag Express"! Ha!