Crypt stories a bit different as we are off until December 15th but fuck me if there isn’t still drama.
For those of you that aren’t caught up, about August of this year I partnered my company with a local caterer who is my work husband to purchase a venue here in Columbus, IN. My company is still very independent, I am essentially the exclusive planning for the space. Basically, neither of us could do it by ourselves but could do it if the other was there to lend a hand as needed, in both planning and his side of it. Ask if this needs more explanation but for now, that’s all you need to know for the following story.
I grab lunch with work husband earlier this week where he gets a phone call from our landlord. (She’s nosy, an alcoholic and frankly a pain in our ass.) WH puts it on speaker phone as he’s going to have to relay to me anyway. She asks “who got divorced??”
We both raise an eyebrow. Uhhh, ..I dunno. Who?
She proceeds to ramble on about this flier she got in the mail about an auction being held in our space this coming Sunday (today.) for divorce assets. W.t.f.
We ask her to send a picture of the flier and hang up.
I’m going to let you all read that fine print carefully and sum it up here in a second. I ask WH what the fuq is going on. Things immediately start clicking after he sees the flier.
He had booked an event in the space late last week under the pretense it was a “Persian rug sale (not an auction, WAY different in the event world.) for 25 people and they only needed two tables.”
He had signed a contract. But had not yet had a chance to run their deposit check to the bank.
At this point, take a look at that fine print if you haven’t already. “Hand signed guaranteed with documentation Degas, Renoir, Monet, etc...”
So not only is this all super fraudulent, this flyer went out to
50,000 people! 3 fucking counties!! And we have about
three days to figure out what the hell is going on.
Thanks to Governing Law, we could cancel the event pretty easily. (In the state of Indiana, if holding an auction, ANY documentation of the event including publicizing must have the Auctioneer name and ID number who must be registered with the state. There are a whole other set of regulations we would even have to jump through if we DID want to hold an auction. None of which are important to the story other to know you can’t just hold an auction.)
But the issue was the possible even fraction of 50,000 morons showing up thinking they are taking home a legitimate Renoir painting.
I left the issue in the hands of my partner since he’s the moron who booked it and have not yet received an update from the day. Last I heard we were putting signs on the door and locking up.
I could strangle him.