Our Crappy Little Story

We were in Birmingham, England at a big international trade show 5 years ago, when the country was walloped by a snowstorm — and by that I mean there was a dusting of a half an inch of light snow on the ground! Now, keep in mind that I'm from Vermont where we routinely get two feet of snow and are still expected to get to work on time! However, when it snows in England, everything comes to a screeching halt. They have very few snowplows or sanding trucks — which they call "Gritters", because they scatter 'grit' on the roads! (Now how charming is that?) So there we were, no plows, no gritters, no taxis, no buses and the trains were at a standstill as well. Plus, the horse and buggies had all gone home for the day! Basically we were stuck out at the airport with 100,000 other people!

We were marooned with no way home. So of course, like all good red blooded American men, we found ourselves in a bar throwing back wonderful frothy warm pints of beer. The pub was packed and people were huddled together drinking with good cheer and the kind of camaraderie that is born out of situations where you share a common challenge. We call it the Snowstorm Syndrome: it leads to extensive drinking, darts and pub songs! The bar was warm and loud, we were eating newspaper-wrapped fish and chips. A couple TVs were broadcasting soccer, others had the pre-game for the Super Bowl (scheduled to be broadcast that night at 1 am!) I think it was the Pats vs. Colts. Believe it or not, there's a huge population of American football fans in jolly old England. It's like sissy rugby to them — the idea of men bashing into each other wearing thick pads and helmets is quite amusing to a nation that plays unpadded, bare-knuckled rugby!

A charming, articulate and well dressed elderly gentleman stopped at our table, and asked if he could join us as there were very few seats left in the pub. We of course welcomed him, and bought more warm beer. We hoisted our pints and toasted the snow storm and the Patriots and even managed to toast the Birmingham Football team. He responded by looking at our little group and in a dead serious, expressionless way stated, "Don't you just hate it when things like this happen — sometimes life is crap, eh mates!"...glug glug!

Being the incredibly sharp-witted and insightful marketing gurus that we were, we looked at him and slurred, "Yeah right mate! Life is Crap!" And then, about two hours later, after more warm beer of course, the light went on. We looked at each other and said almost in unison, "Life is Crap - hey why didn't we think of that!" And our little company was born!

What we realized then and we embrace every day is that life is not always great, or good or even a bowl of cherries. We do confront some challenges and tragedies and sadness and mishaps, but in the end, keeping a positive attitude is key to getting through life's little challenges. Crap Happens — and of course, Laughter is the Cure!

Since then we've managed to grow our little business and build a super little team of Crapsters who do all sorts of crappy things for us: make crappy designs, come up with crappy sayings, do crappy on-line marketing, handle all our crappy orders, manage our crappy little website, and do our best to provide our customers with the best service we can! We have a long way to go until everyone out there is wearing a crappy t-shirt and laughing, but we've come a long way from that snowy night in England. We have thousands of fantastic fans on Facebook who keep us laughing and provide us all with crappy inspiration. We've also created two new collections:

Life is Ruff®

For all the dog lovers and pooper scoopers out there. Life is Ruff. Live it Unleashed.

Life is Poop®

Everything you ever wanted to know you learned in dirty diapers.

So, wherever you are, here's to the dapper, well-dressed English executive who graced our table with your presence five years ago and planted the seed for our little brand: we thank you and toast you; with a fine pint of very chilled Bud! Oh, wait a minute, did someone say we were "Out of Beer"? Life is Crap.

Welcome to Life is Crap and thank you all for your business and support and laughter and good stories. Without our great customers life really would be crap! We're grateful and honored to be able to serve you.

— The Crapsters