I'll Think About It Tomorrow!

This is the story of Candy Cunningham and her credit cards. Candy has a life and a store. Candy's life is packed full of fun, tennis, children, a house, a husband, and a charity or two. Candy's store, The Candy Connection, is packed with candy, candy containers, gifts, gift baskets, employees, and customers.

Candy hurries through life, having a wonderful time and being pretty good at everything she does. Candy manages to attend most of the school plays and soccer games. Her house is warm, attractive, and welcoming. Her husband loves her and feels that she is supportive and loving. She is a good tennis player and a caring neighbor.

The Candy Connection is a fragrant pink and white candy box of a store, full to the brim with freshly made candy and specialties made by small candy kitchens around the country. It is a delight — from the pink and white awnings shading the displays in the bay windows to the shelves of imaginative containers waiting to be filled with sweet gifts. The gift baskets from Candy Connection are round, pink-and-white-striped hatboxes, a-fluff with pink and white tissue and tied with pink and white grosgrain ribbons. Candy's employees are enthusiastic pink-aproned ambassadors for the store. Candy's customers would not dream of going elsewhere for candy or gifts.

Candy is on top of the world … but she's sliding farther and farther into devastating debt.

Like many addicts, Candy is in denial. When one of her kids needs new soccer shoes, a sweater, or a costume for a play tomorrow, Candy does not have time to think about it. Her way of coping with life and managing to do 45 things at once is to "put it on a credit card." When she cannot get out of the store to shop for dinner, she stops by the local gourmet shop and orders take-out … on her credit card. When she has forgotten her best friend's birthday and needs flowers now … she puts them on a credit card. When she gets a flat and has to leave for a trade show this afternoon … she puts new tires on a credit card.

The Candy Connection feeds her habit. When she arrives at work to find a rip in the pink and white awning to the left of the front door … she puts the new awning on a credit card. When Candy needs an industrial mixer to handle increased fudge sales … she puts it on a credit card. Candy loves getting frequent flyer points on her credit cards. Her reward points pay for her flights and hotel expenses at trade shows. She puts all of her show expenses — meals and cabs, etc., on her credit card. She is proud of that. A bookkeeper told her once that it was very professional because all of her show expenses showed up together on her credit card statements in a neat column that could easily be labeled "Show Expenses."

Candy's vendors love credit cards too. Running after small stores for overdue invoices costs money, is time consuming, not fun, and tends to embarrass storeowners. Vendors know when they dun storeowners for payment the owners are shy about coming into their booths to order again. In addition, of course, if a storeowner writes a big order and does not pay his or her bills, it is not worth doing that business. A vendor's profit can be wiped out by the cost of carrying and collecting debt. It is much easier for a vendor to greet each retailer enthusiastically, listen to all the details about their store, and write a nice big order when it can all be put on a credit card. The vendor is assured of prompt payment and the retailer is assured of quick delivery.

It is just as important for The Candy Connection to have the latest chocolate truffle or the cleverest candy container as it is for any gift store to have the latest "in" gift that everyone is talking about. When Candy Cunningham goes to market and sees a box that looks exactly like a book — covered in marbleized paper with a faux-leather spine that can be hot stamped "Sweet Bob by Laura and the Kids," and filled with candy just in time for Father's Day — she has to buy dozens of them. She also buys a hot stamping machine for personalizing the spines. Then she buys rolls of hot stamping foil … and puts it on a credit card. Candy may have spent her open-to-buy budget, but a chain of candy stores is looking to buy the storefront across the street and … put it on the credit card. Put anything on the credit card. Business is fast-moving and competitive. Retailers have to be innovative and offer new merchandise or be left behind.

Every day, Candy receives a new credit card in the mail. A simple phone call activates it, and boom! … more credit. As long as she keeps opening new credit card accounts, the outstanding balance on any one of them doesn't seem so frightening. Never mind that she's reached the spending limit on several of them. The year has just flown by. Candy comes to the end of it and finds that she has five credit cards. She owes money on all of them.

If Candy thinks about it at all, she thinks, like Scarlet O'Hara, that she will think about it tomorrow. In the meantime, she can make low monthly payments and not worry about it. The most important thing is to keep her life together and her store fresh and exciting.

Tomorrow comes for Candy in our next installment. Like Scarlet, Candy has a strong backbone. It's not easy, but she'll survive.