Flea Markets: Not for the Faint of Heart

It's Tuesday, and I'm still recovering from my weekend Flea Market Experience. I'm not really sure why my friend and I decided we could become overnight entrepreneurs at the Flea Market, but I know that I lost 5 years of my life this weekend, just by being there.

Picture this: acres and acres of dirt-floored stalls that in August are used as livestock pens at the State Fair. Red dust so thick that when you sneeze it blows out your eyeballs. It is abnormally HOT, around 90 degrees, and there is virtually no breeze blowing where our little booth is. The only saving grace is that we have one of those "Personal Fans" that you fill with ice water and spritz on yourself with said ice water and air from the fan. It helps for ten seconds, then the Personal Fan Red Dust Residue dries on your face. It is so hot we can't have chocolate in our booth, because it would melt. The absence of chocolate is a big sticking point for my friend and me.

The absence of customers is also a problem. There are no customers at our little booth, and a vendor who has made "between 2 and 6 thousand dollars" at every Flea Market for the last 10 years swore it was the worst one he'd ever seen. Of course it was, because we were there! If we'd been selling those Personal Fans, we could have made a fortune.

And what a tragedy, because our booth is so nice...a beautiful sign adorns the chain-link fence at the back of our dirt-floored space. No rickety fairgrounds tables for us...we have a new table, with a cover, and all our assorted merchandise is tastefully displayed on that table, in an eye-pleasing manner sure to separate discriminating fools from their hard-earned cash. The fact that by the end of the run, all our merchandise was covered in red dust made the whole experience that much more special.

There's an entire Flea Market sub culture, and I am now certain I don't belong to it. For starters, I have way too many teeth. My clothing doesn't reveal enough of my body parts. I don't sport any tatoos or body piercings, and I don't chew gum, tobacco or have a cigarette hanging out of one corner of my mouth. I'm not saying that every vendor at the Flea Market has these characteristics, but the ones who don't are definitely in the minority.

The Flea Market used to be a place where you could find antiques, collectibles, really neat unusual trinkets. Thanks to eBay, the Flea Market is now Liquidator Heaven. You need socks? There are no less than 50 sock vendors. Need sunglasses, or cell phone accessories, or "spa-quality" suntan oil? You'll find rows and rows of vendors selling those very items by the truckload.

There was a nice but overly agressive couple selling Pain Relief Lotion. Without warning, the woman would approach you and rub Pain Relief Lotion on parts of your person that had absolutely no history of pain. It was already 8,000 degrees, and the "massaging warmth" of the Pain Relief Lotion pumped up my personal temperature to nearly boiling. I had to get ugly with the Pain Relief Lotion lady. And I breathed so many Pain Relief Lotion vapors, I'm still smelling and tasting camphor.

My friend and I sold enough merchandise to pay for our Karmel Korn, our lunch on both days, and the hideously large Coke we purchased at DQ on the way home, in an effort to rehydrate our bodies and snap back to our senses. To say we lost money on our Flea Market venture is to say that Elvis' pelvis moved on occasion.

By Saturday afternoon, the conversation quickly turned from "I'm sure more people will be here tomorrow" to "How fast can we load the car and how many trips will it take?"

The answer is 4. In 4 trips and less than 30 minutes, our beautiful, unappreciated booth was history. Our neighbor vendors looked at us with longing...the woman with the sunglasses and suntan oil said it would take her 4 hours to break down. The Pain Relief Lotion couple said, "You'll be sorry for leaving early, tomorrow will be busy!"

We smiled, waved, and gave them our best down-trodden look, yet inside we were ecstatic about leaving Flea Market Hell. We endured one momentary scare when the gate guard refused to let us drive out of the Dealer Parking Lot. Not sure if it was the heat, or the lack of chocolate, or the Pain Relief Lotion, but I just lied. I said sweetly, "Well, sir, we've sold all our stuff!"

I don't think he believed me, but he opened that gate, and we drove out of there in a hurry. I wonder what it takes to open an eBay account?