Scratching that Flea Market Itch

Posted by Cynical Sarah on April 9, 2007

One of the highlights of my long Easter weekend was a trip to the flea market at a nearby community center. Thrilling, I know. I’m sure my life is the envy of all 20 something out there when they find out how exciting my days are.

Anyway, my hubby and I spent a fine Saturday walking to the community center to check out a flea market with free admittance. You really can’t go wrong with free entertainment like that.

It turned out to be more of an indoor garage sale with everybody in the neighbourhood showing up to try to unload every bit of junk they had laying around. It didn’t take long to do the rounds without coming upon much.

There were a few booths that weren’t just used items from home. Some entrepreneurs had brought out some homemade necklaces and earings. There was even someone who had some sort of curtain business. Perhaps we were too late for the good stuff, though, since most of the tables didn’t have much left of real value between their well-loved stuffed animals, used shoes and pitt-stained clothes.

I was already preparing myself for the teasing that would ensue as soon as we left the community center. The flea market was my idea, and the hubby had reluctantly agreed to go in order to get out and do something when there wasn’t anything else we could find to do.

But, at one of the last tables we made it to, he actually found something he liked. There was an older lady who had some nice men’s shirts that he could use for work.

Some of those old ladies are pretty wily with their sales tactics. As soon as we started looking at sizes and showing some interest, she was up out of her seat and around the table to help us out. Troy held the shirt up to see how big it was, and she insisted on holding it up to his back to gage a more accurate fit for him.

We got better service with her than you would in any department store. She was checking the shoulder size, the sleeve length and even making sure the waist would be ok.

That was with the shirt Troy was pretty sure he wanted. Then she insisted he check out a shirt with an Italian designer name that she’d been talking up the whole time we’d been looking at the shirts as well. This one was smaller and didn’t look like it would fit very well. But Ms. Table Guarder wanted Troy to try it on just so she’d “have a better idea of what to tell other people about the size if they asked for her opinion.”

This fine “$150 Italian Shirt” ended up fitting as well, and the old lady won her battle to sell us two shirts instead of one. (Though I will admit, they are both really nice shirts.)

This time I couldn’t be blamed for being the sucker either. There’s an old lady and her even older mother back in South Dakota who sell jellies and jams at the local craft shows. Every time I see them, I feel compelled to buy a jar of jelly … even if I still have a whole jar left from the last craft show. I’m a sucker for those old toothless ladies and their homemade products.

This time however, it was all on Troy. The shirts were for him, completely his decision and it had nothing to do with me being suckered in by an innocent looking grandma. So we walked away two shirts richer and $10 poorer from this flea market that Troy wasn’t even sure he’d wanted to go to.

That seems to be the way it goes with us though. I drag him out garage saling or to a flea market where I can look for bargains, and inevitably I walk away empty-handed and he has some new toy or sunglasses or shirts or whatever.

I’m starting to think his reluctance to go to these things is just for show. He can put up just enough fight so it looks like he hates doing these things and is doing me a favour by going along. In reality, he’s a closet bargain hunter just relying on me to find the venue to go hunting.

- Sarah L. Polson

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Tags: humor, shopping

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