Mo’ Tales

Monday. Fred calls and tells me that if I don’t attend the Boys Dinner this year, he’ll take me off his guest list. Fred lives a secret double life as a DJ, and is well known for his Yaletown block parties that generally don’t start until I’m asleep. It’s been over a decade since I’ve attended one. The Boys Dinner is different. It’s at Gotham Steakhouse, and begins at a respectful 8PM. I figure I can say my hi, how are you’s? and polish off a 16 ounce rib eye in under an hour, and still make my curfew.

Thursday. The holding area at Gotham is full of stockbrokers vying for the attention of a small group of women who probably don’t eat meat, but definitely wear fur. I quickly find Dave Newson, at large, astride a bar stool, nursing a Manhattan. I order a Whiskey Sour in a highball glass. Dave introduces me to Andrew Mortimer Lamb, a dealer in exotic cars, who they affectionately refer to as Mo’ Sheep. Mo is remarkably calm, given that he just entrusted a 2011 Rolls Royce Ghost to valet parking. I self-parked my Hyundai at a meter, and at a dollar for eight minutes, took out a loan to do so.

During dinner I reconnect with the two fellows sitting on either side of me. Henry was a great photographer. Now he’s importing Turkish yoga towels and becoming one with his chakras. Didier works with wood, and is divorced from his socialite heiress wife. He got the same ultimatum from Fred. Show up, or face ostracism.

Across from me is a guy from Chicago who Fred was visiting recently when he texted me to say he was on Michigan Avenue, the Magnificent Mile, shopping for sweets. I asked him to go to Vosges for me, and pick up as many Mo’s Bacon chocolate bars as he was willing to bring back in his carry-on. He did, and I ate most of it myself, but did bring some to work to share with my staff. Offering pieces on a plate as a tremendous example of the marriage of sweet and salty, everyone dutifully took some. Susha ate it hesitantly, and then asked what it was exactly.

She’s vegetarian. I let her extend her lunch hour so she could have her tongue professionally scraped.

William held sway over the table for much of the second course, regaling us with tales of frustration and woe over the City permit and inspection process he recently went through to build out his new sports bar concept attached to his downtown deli. Shades of Morgan Crossing! The names were changed to protect the innocent, but it could just as easily have been the story of the Mink build-out in South Surrey.

Saturday. Fred calls to give me a recap of the boys’ hijinks after I left. Apparently, a Ghost can hold nine close friends comfortably if they’re only going two blocks to the Fairmont. Fred didn’t quit drinking that night until I was waking up that morning. He tells me he feels sorry for people who don’t drink, because when they wake up in the morning, that’s as good as they’re going to feel all day.

I contemplate going back to bed to get mo’ sleep. Now that I’ve re-upped my membership in Fred’s inner sanctum, I fear I’m going to have to make another appearance, somewhere, sometime, and I want to be well rested.

Marc Lieberman

Mink Chocolates Inc.,
Mink A Chocolate Cafe Ltd.

Call the store: 604.633.2451
Call my mobile: 604.376.3464
Call toll free: 1.866.283.5181

Shop: minkchocolates.com
Tweet: twitter.com/minkchocolates
Join: facebook.com/mink.chocolates
Read: blog.minkchocolates.com
Watch: youtube.com search mink chocolates
In Person: 863 Hastings Street West, Vancouver, BC V6C 3N9

Nine out of every ten persons say they love chocolate. The tenth lies.
– Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

Gee, Had Chocolate?

Six Weeks Ago. I get an order online to ship two chocolate bars and one coffee mug to Rabat, Morocco. Product $24. Shipping $156. I’m so excited I have an obvious wealthy friend in an exotic part of the world, I tweet about it, Facebook it, and call my wife.

 “See,” I exclaim, “I have an international reputation. Chocolate from Europe pales in comparison. This customer has exquisite taste.”

She chides me for being naive. “It’s obviously a stolen credit card.”

I dutifully pack the order, and take it to FedEx as the order stipulated. The agent at the counter tells me that shipping chocolate to France is prohibited, and FedEx can’t convey the goods. I’m confused, because I know it’s going to North Africa. I look again at the shipping label that I copied and pasted from the order, and it is indeed addressed Rabat, Morocco, France.

No worries. I recall from high school geography that Morocco was once a territory or protectorate or some such political entity of France, and figured anyone spending this much to ship so little half way around the world, knows more than me or the FedEx guy, so I hike over to Canada Post, and send it off.

I send my customer a transactional email confirming the order went out, and with it the tracking number, and an explanation that it went via our national postal system and the reasons why.

I immediately get another order from the customer, for mostly different product totaling the same amount of money, and explicit instructions to ship FedEx. This time the order is consigned identically save for the reference to France.  I get a separate email reminding me to ship FedEx.

I call FedEx customer service and am told there are no issues shipping chocolate to Morocco. I package up the order, and send it away. The customer gets a tracking number and I have an amusing story to tell to anyone who’ll listen.

Four Weeks Ago. I get another online order from the same customer. I call my wife. “This guy must be an oil sheik, or the bored child of an oil sheik. I’m good, but am I really that good?” I ask.

She tells me to Google him.

Two hours later I’ve found out his hotmail account is hosted in Germany, his cell number is from Thailand, his email signature is a veiled reference to an occult war game character, the address in Rabat is a possible hotel, there’s no Facebook, MySpace or Twitter identity, the Canada Post shipment is undeliverable, the second shipment was signed for by a third party, and Morocco gained independence from France in 1956.

My clever wife tells me to call my payment processor and make more inquiries into the validity of the credit card. I do so, and they call back to confirm that it is valid, although it too originates in Germany, and they cannot verify the cardholder’s name. We talk about the risks inherent in ecommerce, and I’m left with not much more to go on.

I decide to sit on the order for a couple of days, hoping something plays out that gives me more comfort to ship. I get a fourth order. Again, thirty dollars worth of product, almost two hundred to ship, and extremely explicit demands that it goes by FedEx immediately.

I send the customer a very polite, professional and respectful email asking for photo identification to validate the order. Not one to judge, I don’t imply a stolen card because the Customer Verification Number form the back of the card is valid, nor do I question the propensity to shop online for obviously good chocolate!

I put it all on the shoulders of my payment processor needing to know, and ask for a scan of a passport to prove the relationship to the purchaser and the recipient. I hear nothing back.

Two Weeks Ago. I send out a quick newsletter to announce Christmas chocolate available in store and online. My subscriber base consists of people who voluntarily sign up, and people who don’t realize when they order online that they need to uncheck a box at the time of order if they don’t want to receive my periodic mailings.

My buddy in Morocco unsubscribes.

The Present. No requests for a refund, no inquiries as to why the remaining two orders didn’t ship. No shortage of speculation on my part.

A friend postulates that there’s a network of covert operatives ordering a tremendous amount of stuff from all over the world, and that the address in Rabat is a drop. The FedEx link is puzzling, but my friend goes on to suggest that if hundreds of packages get delivered daily, one or two illicit ones will sneak in, and this is all a cover to get the contraband into the country.

For my friend, the giveaway is the initial reference to French Morocco. He figures the perp is old enough to have lived through the occupation, and that this whole thing smells. He alludes that this is the kind of information that French Special Ops would act on, travelling to Rabat, snatching the guy, and water boarding him until the mystery is fully resolved.

I think he watches too much TV, but he is French and has a shadowy past that may include a stint in the French Foreign Legion.

I download the CNN app to my BlackBerry. I want all the late breaking international news that I can’t get this time of year on TV because we’ve tuned in the Holiday Fireplace. I scan the headlines for FedEx planes going down, terrorist plots uncovered, wealthy Moroccans busted in chocolate themed sex scandals. Nothing.

My wife tells me I should call CSIS, Canada’s security and intelligence service. My French friend tells me he’ll put me in contact with “a guy”. I shrug them both off. After all, the irony is not lost on me that the consistent thread in the whole saga is the fact that each of the four orders had a Greetings From Canada chocolate bar.

It may be something. It may be nothing. But for sure it’s a blog post.

Greetings From Mink, and Merry Minky to all.

Marc Lieberman

Mink Chocolates Inc.,
Mink A Chocolate Cafe Ltd.

Call the store: 604.633.2451
Call my mobile: 604.376.3464
Call toll free: 1.866.283.5181

Shop: minkchocolates.com
Tweet: twitter.com/minkchocolates
Join: facebook.com/mink.chocolates
Read: blog.minkchocolates.com
Watch: youtube.com search mink chocolates
In Person: 863 Hastings Street West, Vancouver, BC V6C 3N9

Nine out of every ten persons say they love chocolate. The tenth lies.
– Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

Living Large

Tuesday. Dave sends me an email to introduce me to the fellow that’s going to take his place this year and dress both Mink stores for Christmas. Dave will be in Toronto with Fred, running a million dollar warehouse sample sale and is willing to forego the hundred bucks and all the cappuccinos he can drink and let someone else hang finials and snowflakes from the Cafés ceilings.

I feign understanding and reply that I wish him much success back east. I do notice though, his email signature has changed. It used to be just Dave Newson. Now it’s Dave Newson, at large.

He is a man of talent, but without any professional accreditation. Wikipedia would define him as a fugitive, but I think this moniker gives him a certain air of global legitimacy that only a bon vivant can have. I wonder if he went all the way and got embossed business cards.

Wednesday. We get a postcard in the mail, addressed to all the staff at the Café. It’s from Latte Mike, an executive in the financial services industry who works across the street, and a very good and loyal latte drinking customer of ours. He recently opted out of modern life by eschewing all technology post 1969. His card was addressed “To the most masterful barista team in the 604: You guys rock!. I’m good to my word – no tech… see you this afternoon.”  On the front is a picture of a guy pointing at a UFO.

I’m not sure if he came in the day the card was delivered, but I thought he should have signed it Latte Mike, really, truly, at large.

Thurday. I’ve just spent a couple of hundred bucks on iTunes loading Christmas music onto the Café playlist. There is a dearth this year of festive releases, so I’m buying again older songs I once ripped from Napster, but since deleted for fear of spending the holidays with Bernie Madoff in the old Graybar hotel.

There’s no consensus in retail as to when it’s appropriate to start playing Christmas music, but it’s increasingly evident that it gets earlier every year. I decide to call Dave and ask for his advice.

“It’s just my opinion,” he says, “but no decorations, no music, and no seasonal inventory until Black Friday.”

“Why does the biggest shopping day of the year have such an ominous name?” I ask him.

“Because everyone realizes they’re buying this year’s gifts with next year’s money.” Dave says, “and it’s just a passageway into the black hole that is life.”

“Could you not mince words and just say what you mean?” I ask.

“I’m in Toronto. Cut me some slack.”

I hang up with the man-at-large and go make myself a coffee. Sitting on the couch, I think back to a time when Christmas cards came in the mail, holiday music came from a hi-fi and the tree didn’t go up until Christmas Eve. We may all be fugitives fleeing our collective pasts, but it’s still about getting in the spirit of things.

Peace on Earth, and Chocolate for All.

Marc Lieberman

Mink Chocolates Inc.,
Mink A Chocolate Cafe Ltd.

Call the store: 604.633.2451
Call my mobile: 604.376.3464
Call toll free: 1.866.283.5181

Shop: minkchocolates.com
Tweet: twitter.com/minkchocolates
Join: facebook.com/mink.chocolates
Read: blog.minkchocolates.com
Watch: youtube.com search mink chocolates
In Person: 863 Hastings Street West, Vancouver, BC V6C 3N9

Nine out of every ten persons say they love chocolate. The tenth lies.
– Anthelme Brillat-Savarin