Happy Mother's Day

I like to do fun things with the kids for Mother's Day. After all, if not for them, I wouldn't be a mother! So today, my 13-year-old son, PacMan, my 19-year-old daughter, C, and I went to play Monster Golf.

In 2003, this glow-in-the-dark, montster-themed, indoor miniature golf course opened inside an old dilapidated mill building in town. I thought it was a great way to utilize the old building and the indoor putt-putt was lots of fun. Earlier this year, we learned that Monster Golf had moved to a new location about 30-minutes north of us. While looking for directions today, I happened to learn something about the history of this unique entertainment center.


The founders are a local couple from this area. The wife had owned an antique auction company. Wanting to get out of that line of work, she sold the business and looked for a new venture. She wanted to remain self-employed, but was looking for a business that was primarily self-serve, required very few employees to run and would be something different. She and her husband came up with the concept for Monster Golf. A year later, her husband quit his job and they created a corporation to franchise their unique miniture golf business. A handful of locations are currently up-and-running, and another dozen are scheduled to open this year. For about $250,000, you too can buy a franchise! They sell them as turn-key businesses, setting up the course in your location and training you to run it. You share in the marketing provided by the corporate headquarters, including the website. You also share your gross profits with the corporation - to the tune of 8%.


Why am I not creative enough to think of an idea like this?? Over the course of only 3-4 years, this couple has gone from running a local, indoor mini-golf in a tiny, rural town to being a corporation which has sold over a dozen franchises for a quarter-million dollars each. Wow!


I seem to have changed subjects. Back to Mother's Day: We had a great time. We never keep score; it's a lot more fun that way. Afterward, we went out for ice cream sundaes, then came home and watched a bad, supposed-to-be-a-comedy movie.


My oldest son, age 21 and in the army, phoned home tonight to wish me a happy mother's day. He was uncharacteristically talkative and we had a really nice chat.


Tomorrow I go from Monster Golf back to Monster.com, in my never-ending and unsucessful effort to find a new job. It's really getting to me; you can't begin to imagine. But Big Dave complimented me for staying cheery in the face of catastrophe, so I'll end this post while still on a positive note!