Electronic Cheese

by Allan T. Price

On her twenty-third birthday Angela dragged herself out of bed at 5am to get ready for another ten-hour workday. Monday to Friday she did a two hour round trip to various boutique cheese makers before nine am then ran her store until five in the afternoon. However, today was Saturday so she could sleep in a little if she left the paperwork until after work. She struggled out of bed. Better to get up and do it before she opened up her shop.

Sunday afternoon at her birthday party, her older sister again started preaching to her about websites. What did the Web have to do with hand-made cheeses? Sick of Helen not taking 'no' for an answer, Angela shifted her ground. "I'd love to have one, but it would be too expensive." "They are cheaper than you'd think." Helen smiled. "I'll pay for it, for two months. Call it an extra birthday present." "Fine, waste your money...As long as I don't have to do anything." "Well, you are the cheese frea... connoisseur. I'll need a few hours of your time to design your webpage. Tuesday? About three?" A few more hours added to her usual sixty hour week? Helen clearly had no idea how hard Angela worked. "It will have to be after work."

So Tuesday, after another ten-hour day, Angela spent time designing a webpage. She listed all of the cheeses she stocked with a standard order form. To her surprise, Helen had the webpage up on the Internet the next day. So Thursday, she stayed after work sending out the two orders that had been placed via the website. The next week, she got a couple of orders, and then it was three or four per week. Angela kept careful track so she could prove it wasn't worthwhile.

"Well, Helen. Your webpage has made me a grand total of a hundred bucks." She held out five twenties. "Would you like it to cover the cost of the website?" Helen smiled and leaned across the table. She took one of the offered notes. "That'll cover it." "No, take enough for the whole month." "Sis, twenty will cover the two months I promised, and leave me two dollars tip for my work."

The following Tuesday, feeling foolish, Angela started filling orders during quiet times throughout the day, rather than staying after work. So, her days were busier, although back to only ten hours long. However, there was now more quiet time for some reason. Less people were coming into the shop. So on Friday, she had all of Thursday's web orders done by midday.

A half hour later, she'd sold the last of the Asadero she hadn't yet wrapped to send out. Hopefully, no-one else would want any. Just after two o'clock an irritable woman came in and asked for two pounds. Asking her to wait, Angela dashed into the backroom and took the wrapping off a two pound parcel of Asadero to fill this customer's order. Then, she spent twenty minutes staring at the wrapping with its neat label showing the name 'Jessica Sabine', a woman who wanted Asadaro cheese and now wouldn't be getting it. Feeling guilty for her 'theft', Angela rang one of her Asadero makers.

"Jose, can you send me some more Asadero? It's a rush order, so wrap it and post it to..." Angela stared at the discarded wrapping in her hand with its neat address label. "Can you send it direct to the customer?" "I guess so, if you cover the postage." She read out the address.

It turned out that most of her suppliers were willing to send out cheese for her if she covered postage costs. Two turned her down flat, and one agreed, but with the condition of doing it only if she emailed the details. "It will save me scribbling down addresses." Steve looked across his farm avoiding her eyes, "and having to stress about my terrible spelling."

She nodded. "Addresses can be tricky." "I've heard they are, even if you aren't dyslexic." He looked her in the eye, blushing. "That's why I became a cheese maker, instead of getting an office job." He looked around again, at his animals and his workshop, slowly smiling. "Gee, to think I have to do this instead of being bent over a desk all day."

Helen set up Angela's computer to forward orders to the correct supplier, and printed out the website to stick on the front door. When she saw it, Angela nearly took it down. "Why does anyone need the website if they are at my store?" Helen shrugged. "People may walk past, and decide later that they...People must walk past on Sunday when you're closed." For the next week Angela dropped off wrapping paper and labels when she collected cheese. Then she spent Sunday visiting new cheese makers to find replacements for the two that wouldn't mail cheese to her webpage clients. Feeling bad about automatically sending them orders, Angela talked to her bank and arranged to pay her suppliers automatically too.

During the last month of winter Helen caught the flu and gave it to Angela. Helen recovered in two days, but Angela was in bed for a week and her shop stayed closed. Returning the following Tuesday Angela found some spoiled cheese and a lot of messages on her answering machine. At first she heard mostly complaints about her being closed. Then there were some apologies because their cheese had arrived promptly. Surprised, Angela reviewed her records.

While she was ill, some people who'd normally shop in her store had used her website since Helen had listed it on her door. All of her website customers had ordered, paid, and received their cheese, all without her being there. Feeling melancholy and slightly useless, Angela threw out the spoiled cheese, closed up and went home to bed.

That afternoon, she lay in bed and considered her finances. Sadly, she couldn't survive without running her shop. The webpage sales were almost enough, but not quite. At midnight, she woke up feeling ridiculous and subtracted 'rent - shop' from her list of expenses. Then 'utilities - shop'. That tipped the balance, even ignoring the savings of not driving out to collect cheese, or her no longer suffering any losses due to spoilage. Surely all her loyal customers would adjust to buying over the Internet, given time. Heck, she could visit her favorite customers personally to help them. Then all she'd have to do is stay in touch with them and her cheese makers by email.

Two days after her twenty-fourth birthday, Angela dragged herself out of bed at nine am. After taking three days off, she'd have to work a solid four-hour day and actually leave the house, rather than just checking things on her computer.