A few years ago at the Montreal Gift Show, it was my responsibility to set up an exhibit featuring 1,680 pieces of jewelry. So you can imagine the sense of accomplishment I felt placing the last item atop my artfully arranged display. You can also probably imagine the surge of exasperation I felt when the fire marshal walked up and told me I had to take it all down because my display was illegal.

I was using the same 10-by-30-foot exhibit I had for the past eight shows, and it was a beauty. The walls featured alternating panels of white and purple acrylic, trimmed in chrome and backlit. Thirty-five matching purple displays crafted of heavy-duty cardboard showcased my jewelry lines throughout the space, and though my exhibiting neighbors sometimes said it resembled a bordello, the booth had won awards for its flashy style.

It was the day before the show, and my laborers and I had been setting up the exhibit since 8 a.m. At 3:45 p.m., just as I was putting the last necklace on a stand, a fire marshal walked into the space and eyeballed my jewelry display stands disapprovingly. "These are made of cardboard and are not acceptable," she told me, "and you can't use them."

Given that I had used them at that show eight times before, I told her that her ruling was preposterous. "Well the displays were never allowed," she said, "but we just didn't notice them until now." I explained that when the displays were created, I had gone to great expense to have them coated in fire-retardant vinyl.

I stared at her. She stared back at me. We were at a stalemate, and I was beginning to envision my exhibit looking like a garage sale with the jewelry spread all over the floor. But then she offered me one ever-so-tiny concession: If I covered the surfaces of each display case with vinyl sheeting, which would add flame retardance, then she would let them stay.

I had no idea where I was going to get vinyl sheeting at 4 p.m. on a Saturday in downtown Montreal, but I was optimistic that I would eventually find something in a clear vinyl that wouldn't look too ghastly in my booth. At a speed that can only be described as frantic, I told the laborers, who were now on overtime, to begin removing all the jewelry while I searched for vinyl, and I tore through the venue looking for anyone who looked like they could advise me on where to go.

A show employee suggested I try a downtown mall five blocks away where there was a Canadian Tire, a chain store similar to a Wal-Mart. And with that, I was off in my car, but little did I know that it probably would have been faster to run the five blocks rather than try to find a parking spot at a shopping mall in Montreal at that hour. As I drove in circles, my blood pressure was threatening to blow off my head, and I made a pact with myself that I would leave the store with absolutely anything that would get me past the fire marshal.

Unfortunately, I soon discovered there was only one thing in the store that would fit the bill. Before me in the home-improvement department was a gigantic, bulk spool full of 4-foot-wide vinyl. Green vinyl. Like a garbage bag.

Cursing under my breath and maybe out loud just a tiny bit, I rolled off enough vinyl to cover the Earth. I had 35 5-by-3-by-2-foot display cases to cover and no idea how much vinyl I needed, but I knew I wasn't going back to that store a second time. I also grabbed handfuls of packages of straight pins, the most unobtrusive item I could think of for fastening the vinyl to the displays.

Back at the convention venue, I enlisted laborers to help me cut the vinyl and painstakingly pin pieces into place over all the exposed surfaces on each display. We spent three hours cutting and pinning vinyl, and the whole time I felt sick about turning my beautiful bordello booth into a heinous vinyl-covered mess.

After all the cutting and pinning was finished, we spent three more hours putting all 1,680 pieces of jewelry back on the cases, and by midnight I was once again setting the last piece of jewelry in place. I stood back an examined our work, and I really couldn't have been more horrified. Royal purple and garbage-bag green don't exactly complement each other on the color wheel, and I was particularly concerned about the mental association people might have when they saw the hideous vinyl under my products, which seemed to say: "Welcome, folks. Have a look around. All this jewelry is ready to go right in the trash." Nice.

I went back to my hotel to get some sleep and re-examine my career path, and returned the next morning having vowed to make the best of the situation. As I stood in my garbage-bag display, neighboring exhibitors were having a good time yukking it up over my misfortune, but it was the kind of uncomfortable laugh that comes from knowing that they, too, could probably be the victim of a fire marshal's whim at any point. Attendees, of course, couldn't help but remark about my bizarre display, because anyone who looked at it knew instantly that something had gone terribly wrong.

By the end of the four-day trade show I was relieved to be done with the spectacle of green vinyl. I'll admit that it was a great conversation starter, it got me tons of sympathy, and everyone shared lots of laughs over it. But it sure didn't sell me much jewelry. In fact, it was my worst show ever — go figure.

Years later, I have permanent indents in my thumbs from all those straight pins, and I still think the fire marshal was wrong. But I acknowledge that sometimes we as exhibitors just have to roll with it. I only hope that next time, rolling with it doesn't involve big green rolls of vinyl. E

— Jerry Rubin, owner, Bizbuilder canada.com, Winnipeg, MB, Canada