Big Order

The first week in November I got a big order from a corporate client. Far and away the biggest order I've ever gotten - and here's hoping it leads to more work from them and similar clients.

As you might imagine, I've been pretty happy about that order for a number of reasons. So when I first got it, I was telling DH about it over dinner with the kids listening in intently. Being my biggest cheerleaders, they were all excited about it and wanted to know details. How many cookies? How many cupcakes? How much money are you getting?

When I told them the dollar amount of the order, there was a lot of excitement around the dinner table. It was an amount that for them seemed totally other-worldly (and frankly, it kinda shocked me, too.) So their reaction was not entirely surprising, along the lines of:

We're rich!
Oh my god, Mummy, that's close to like a billion dollars!
Does this mean we can start having take-away again?
Yippee! We can call the cleaning lady to come again!
That's SO MUCH money Mum - you're like a billionaire, like that song!
So can we go out to dinner to celebrate?
This is HUGE, right? HUGE?!
When are you going to get paid?

To them the order itself and the money seem enormous - but more importantly, they are ignorant of the fact that I don't really get to KEEP all that money. Most of that money won't ever see my wallet. Most of it will go to ingredients, kitchen rental, wages, and and and ... very little of it will come back to me. For now, though, I haven't chosen to burst their bubble, because there is a little part of me that wishes I too could indulge in the fantasy. I sometimes wish I was ignorant of the reality of a small business, too - but then if I were, I probably would not be where I am right now, which is still actually IN business.

Their excitement is fabulous though - because it's not just about the money, it's about them saying they're proud of me in the best way they know how, AND it's catching. So I caved, and agreed that we did really need to go out to dinner to celebrate "Mummy's huge order and being a millionaire" ...and I even had to promise it would be somewhere nice, with tablecloths and everything.

Sheesh. Tablecloths? What am I, a millionaire?