Zoe, it must be the season for it!
A "friend" of my gals asked if we would display a few bits of jewellery she's been experimenting with to see if they would sell. She assured me they were totally different from N's, more sculptural blah blah. In the event they were remarkably similar in style, but made of mass-produced coloured wooden beads instead of the polymer clay beads N hand makes. But they were half the price! - literally. I asked her to match N's prices, explaining N has to make a living out of hers and a level playing field would be fair. She agreed but after I'd gone told N she wasn't going to be told what to do with her F'ing jewellery and took them away.
The next day she saw N and told her she'd been telling her boss all about me, omitting that she was now selling them from his bookshop (2 doors away!). When I discovered this I sent him an email explaining my actions (probably stupid but I was a bit cross) and received a pompous reply suggesting price fixing and dropping heavy hints that as he'd reported other book-sellers to the OFT he wouldn't hesitate to do it again.
I headed straight for the reply button then had better thoughts. He runs a secondhand book area in his shop and I had a load of books ready to go to the charity shop. You can probably see where this is going
The best part though is when I put a sign outside the shop announcing the 50p charity bookstall (his minimum price is £1) complete with a car sticker, which I couldn't read because it had a thick cover over it until I peeled it off and it says "back Maggie's"
What has truly amazed me is the amount of support I've had from the rest of the village! The books have been coming in thick and fast! I'm guessing he's got on the wrong side of all of them at one time or another (I certainly don't believe they're all ardent fundraisers for Maggie's Cancer Care Centres! Oh, and they're selling really well too -so I hope the commission he's making on £2.50 pairs of earrings is making up for his lack of book sales.
Am I a bad person?
. A colleague has just got some hens. She brought a box of eggs into the office to sell. I only asked her how much she was charging and agreed to charge the same 
certainly not - you are wishing him well in his endeavours to be a jewellry shop after all 
Remind me never to cross you.... 