Longtime readers will remember that I held 2 Stockpile Sales(think Garage Sale but with new excess food and HBA items)this past summer. Catch up on those adventures HERE and HERE.
I can't recall at which Stockpile Sale the following happened but it really doesn't matter I guess.
Anyway, during one of those sales, one of my customers was chatting with me and as inevitably happens in the conversation, they asked where I got all this nifty stuff I am selling. I usually just answer that I "coupon" and that either shuts them up OR acts as a gateway for them to start plying me with questions about the whole couponing/money saving/frugal lifestyle thing.
Hey, I am always glad to share my saving ways with anyone who asks!
Well this gal seemed intrigued and after we got beyond that whole "extreme couponing" ugliness that is shown on tv which all the non-believers want to know about(lol), we had a nice little chat.
Then she sucker punched me......
Ok, she didn't actually hit me or anything, but out of the blue, she asked me to come speak at a local women's club meeting about couponing.
Turns out she is the President of said club in my teeny tiny town, which meets monthly for lunch and a talk by some speaker, on a topic of interest to said gaggle of women.
She said she's had members ask her about getting someone in to talk about coupons and saving money at the grocery store.
And I am guessing since I have more stuff, obtained through couponing, than I can use, that I must be good at this, so she asked me.
Not being someone who turns down the opportunity to run-off at the mouth to a captive audience(longtime readers KNOW this!lol), I said I'd do it.
I said yes because it was summer and she wanted me to come speak in January of next year.....which at the time seemed like a gazillion years away and I'd have pleeeeeenty of time to organize my thoughts.
Well, here it is the second week of January and I am slated to give this Epic presentation in less than 10 days and my brain is a jumble of mushy facts.
Ack.Ack.Ack.
I need to at least make myself some kind of outline to follow or my 10 minute talk will resemble a Bill Clinton press conference and I'll have hawkers in the audience selling sleeping bags and bug-out packs of 3 days worth of MREs to sustain my audience through to the end of my 'brief chat'. ;-)
Now that this thing is almost at hand I am freaking out. Why did I ever agree to do this thing?!
I am not a public speaker. Ok, I use to be an actress but that was eons ago and I wasn't writing my own script!lol
The club prez did confide that it's not a big deal and they don't expect a ToastMaster, a Power Point, a Steve Jobs company meeting presentation or anything like that. Just talk about what you do and then field questions from the audience, she said. And she suspects there will be oodles of questions since many of the women are younger moms with small children at home who could benefit from and will be eager to hear what I have to say.
So, dear readers......what would YOU cover if YOU were asked to give this talk? How long would you speak and how specific would you get?
I am just hoping when they introduce me as "one who uses coupons" that I don't get a lot of questions about extreme couponing and "the show that shall not be named on TLC".
I sure don't want to spend 20 minutes distancing myself and what I do from that Ball of Crazy!
Whatever transpires, I hope I come off looking like this.....
And not like this.....
Yah, I guess I'd better start practicing my balloon animals now just in case.....
Sluggy
