Tonight I had a discussion about being lost in Chisholm. I was asked how you could possibly get lost in Chisholm? Well, you see, when the directions involved “go past some trees and when you see a piece of machinery and when the gravel gets rough”-it’s easy to get lost for a very long time. The first house I bought in Chisholm came with a book with names and numbers of people nearby as well as descriptions like “up on the hill and where something used to be”. I have gotten used to descriptions like that here- I have no idea how people think they’re possible to understand- but that’s how Chisholm works. Every direction involves “on the __th line (there are no ___th lines anymore the roads have had names for 20+ years),a dog, a hill or where so-and-so used to live” and I have no freaking clue where any of that is.

A few years ago I got invited to go to a cottage and decided at the last minute to show up as a surprise. Trust me this was not one of my finest moments. I don’t remember who I bribed to keep my kids that night but somehow they weren’t home and I went. Somewhere around 3 hours in (with the low fuel light on in my truck) I ended up lost on a skidder trail (on foot by that point), in the pouring rain, about 3am with 2% battery life on my phone providing me the only light, yelling at the top of my lungs and hoping someone would hear me. I was sure I was sleeping with the mosquitoes until daylight but by some miracle I found my truck, charged my battery and tried again. I finally found the cottage. However that was not to be the last time I was lost that night.

I was super lucky to inherit juvenile glaucoma-you’re supposed to get this as an old person but I got it as a teenager. I don’t see very well at night, often fall and this alone provides challenges and more funny stories than I can remember, maybe I’ll tell some of these another time. So into the camp I went but there were no lights-the generator was off by then and I tried to find my room. With a then dead phone and being able to see NOTHING AT ALL I had to use my other senses to figure out where I was supposed to be. I finally thought I found my room but my sense of smell told me something wasn’t right however my sense of touch seemed to tell me it was fine. Until it really-REALLY wasn’t. About the instant I figured out I was in the wrong room I also discovered that room had bunk beds as I smashed my head off the top bunk and saw stars and prayed to all gods and the devil himself that I would not pass out on the person sleeping in the bed that definitely wasn’t mine. Somehow my prayers were answered and I didn’t pass out and after a lot more stumbling around and eventually just yelling I did find it and it ended up being a pretty good surprise.

That is how it can be at the store. Today I got asked for “a little see through scope that goes on a rail.” After much interpretation we were able to determine that the customer wanted a red dot. Last week I was asked for 233 shells- and it was definitely 233 shells they were certain-but what they actually wanted was 223 shells. I was asked not too long and for 306 shells. I asked if they meant 307 or 308 but no they kept repeating 306. I said I had never heard of that but I would look it up as there are countless shells I have never heard of. They insisted every camp had them they were the most common shell there is. This made no sense to me and finally I asked if he meant 30-06? “Oh yes,” customer told me “but we call them 306”. Sometimes the customer is wrong and sometimes I am wrong, I will totally admit there are still a lot of things I haven’t heard of.

n the end you just have to take all the information you are given-combine that with what you already know-and look up even more information to finally figure out what exactly a customer wants. Sometimes it is no where near where I originally thought they were headed with what they described and sometimes they end up with something completely different than they thought they wanted to suit their requirements. It’s kind of like being lost in the dark-I thought I was in the wrong place- but years later I learned I wasn’t-I was just there at the wrong time. Sometimes what you think you want isn’t what you need. And then there are other times the customer is just plain wrong and quite commonly just plain crazy. We don’t tell them that-but sometimes they’re over the hill, with a dog (or maybe is a bear or a fisher) in whatever place in their mind that is they live in. We simply give them knowledge and direction to the best of our abilities and in the end-hope they don’t end up lost in Chisholm.