Celebrating Sevier County!

Maybe last week when you did not see me put a post up on my blog, you thought I did something that got me a consequence of not having permission to be on the Internet but that would be wrong because last week, instead of putting something on my blog, I was at this superly cool event.

I did not go all day because I had school, but after school, my mom picked me up and we went to the Sevier County Hospitality and Trade Show Celebration at the Sevierville Convention Center.  We went because that’s what you do when you have a business and you’re a member of the Sevierville Chamber of Commerce.  You celebrate important things with other members of the Sevierville Chamber of Commerce.  So that’s what we did.  We supported everyone that was celebrating, even if they were a member of a different Chamber of Commerce because business is business, and Chambers of Commerce are there for businesses.  But mostly, all I know about is the Sevierville Chamber of Commerce, and if you ask me, that’s the best Chamber of Commerce ever.

Anyway, what the ad calls vendors were actually businesses and attractions in Sevier County and they weren’t selling anything at their tables.  They were celebrating and it was a big celebration because it was the 18th one and every one knows what happens when something or someone turns 18:  CELEBRATE BIG TIME!!!!

Even if the word celebration didn’t show up on any of the advertising, I know that’s what it was because some businesses were giving away FREE popcorn, and some businesses were giving away FREE candy, and some businesses were giving away FREE cookies, and even one business was giving away FREE ice cream.  And plus, every business that had a table was giving away goodies.  Also, when you signed in at the front table when you got to the Sevierville Convention Center, the people there gave everyone grab bags!  You only get grab bags at parties, and parties are always celebrations so that pretty much says this was a superly fantastic humongous celebration for everybody that has a business or a attraction in Sevier County.

The people at the front door gave me and my mom a piece of paper they called a survey for attendees, but it kind of wasn’t because on the other side was a list of all the businesses and attractions that were there, and if you got almost all the businesses and attractions with tables to sign beside their business name, you got to enter to win door prizes.

My friend Kristy Law (she takes pictures at Dollywood and they are excellent because she knows cameras and picture taking a hundred percent great), she won this lamp that had a old-fashioned lamp in it like what you see old-timey train conductors swinging in the movies when a train pulls into a station and the conductor is hanging from the train.  She said she was going to keep it at her house but I think maybe she’s going to put it in her office at Dollywood (if she has a office there) because it would fit in the way they decorate over there.

Just so you know, I saw Uncle Chuck there, too, because he went with Kristy and it looked to me like he did a lot of celebrating because he had some neat art stuff in his grab bag.  He’s not my real uncle, but he told me to call him Uncle Chuck, so he’s like a adopted uncle, but he’s Kristy’s real uncle just so you know.

The best giveaway was this toy the BBB was giving away to everybody.  The man at that table said it was a stress reducing toy, but I told him I knew he was being a fooler boy because everybody could tell he was giving away seals of approval.

And then I saw Mr. Stanfill, and he’s the Membership Director of the Sevierville Chamber of Commerce.  He was manning the table for SCOC, and lots of people kept stopping there to say hello to him.  He smiled a lot when my mom and me stopped to say hello, too.  I mentioned I didn’t think I ever saw the banner at his location anywhere else before, and he told me it was one of the older banners.

I like that the Sevierville Chamber of Commerce doesn’t throw away stuff just because it’s not brand spanking new (that’s how my Grandpa Two Rivers says it).  The banner was in superly great shape and if I never mentioned anything about not seeing it before, I’ll bet nobody would’ve known it was not brand spanking new.  I liked the logo because it really said Sevierville to my way of thinking.

I talked to a bazillion people about The Case of the Vanishing Valise, and lots of people are superly interested in reading all about it when my book comes out in April.

So last week, I was busy celebrating with all my fellow Chamber of Commerce business friends, and that’s why last week I wasn’t at home posting to my blog.

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Being A Boss Is Hard Work

My big brother Josh is a excellent drawer, and he’s in charge of making a drawing version of me for the song Artie Q did for my detectiving business.  That makes me the boss of the project (my mom said so) and that means I have the last word on everything that gets done for the video.  I really liked that at the beginning, but not s much now because it’s actually a lot of work and not so much fun as I thought it was going to be.

So Josh did this mock-up drawing of me for the video, and I said, “That doesn’t look like me.”

Then he said, “It would if you were animation instead of real.”

Then I said, “I don’t think my eyes should be that big.”  I said that because they were way huge, and when I look at me in the mirror in the bathroom, my eyes are not that humongous big.

Then he said, “It’s called animation for a reason.”  But he never told me the reason why it’s called animation when the person’s eyes are way big.

So we kind of had a argument until my other big brother Aaron came into the room.  He listened to me about how come Josh and me, we were arguing, and after that he asked Josh two questions:

1.  Are you doing all this artwork for Missy for free?

2.  Can you make her eyes smaller without making it look wrong?

Josh said he was doing it for free, but I kind of argued that because he’s getting free exposure for his art that should count for something. Then Aaron said that if Josh wanted exposure for his art, he could do any drawing and ask Mr. Carter at I See Delights to hang it up at his shop with contact information beside his artwork, or apply to have his art displayed in the art gallery location of the Makerspace area on the third floor of the King Family Library.  So I kind of lost that part of the argument.

Then Josh said he could make the eyes smaller but the smaller the eyes get on the drawing, the harder it is to make it so people know if I was superly surprised or excited or happy or mad.  I said that my eyes are not so big as in the picture Josh made, and everybody can tell when I’m surprised or excited or happy or mad without the humongous big eyes Josh drew.  But Aaron said everybody knew that from more than just my eyes, and I guess he’s right because it’s not just a person’s eyes that are surprised or excited or happy or mad.  It’s all of them.  So I kind of lost that part of the argument, too.

That’s where I had to do a compromise, and I don’t like compromises because that means I don’t get a hundred percent of what I need to get.

Josh agreed he is still going to do the artwork for my video for free and he agreed he would make the eyes on the drawing of me a little bit not so huge.  I agreed I wouldn’t be so mad at Josh for doing his best work, and I agreed that Aaron would be the decider of any more fights me and Josh have about the video.

Then Aaron asked me, “Did you tell Artie Q what to put in his song?”

“No,” I said.  “I just asked him if he could change his song Columbus In A Car to maybe Columbo In A Car for my detectiving business theme song because, you know, Columbus … Columbo …”

“You didn’t tell him how to record the song?”

“No.”

“You didn’t tell him how to mix the song?”

“No.”

“You didn’t tell him how to master the song?”

“No.”

“You loved the song just the way it was when it was finished?”

“Yes, because it was perfect.”

“Here’s something to think about, Missy,” Aaron said.  “How come you don’t have as much faith in Josh’s art as you do in Artie Q’s music?”

And, you know, Aaron made a superly good point with that question because I guess if I was more of a boss with Artie Q, maybe I would not have a Missy Barrett big detective theme song, so I apologized to Josh, and he said everything was good between us, and that made me happy because I don’t like fighting with my family members about anything

That means that today I learned being a boss is hard work, but being a GOOD boss is even harder work.  I think that’s a very good lesson for me to learn because everybody knows that undercover private eye supersleuth detectives always need a secretary to hold down the fort at the office when they’re busy detectiving on a job.