My Epic Adventures at the Crown Flea Market

MY EPIC ADVENTURES AT THE CROWN FLEA MARKET

Trust me, there is sarcasm in the title of this blog entry.

For a time, my Dad and I were vendors at an indoor flea market. To keep myself sane during those long days I would bring a book to read and a notebook in case I was at all inspired to write. This is what I wrote:

December 8th, 2007

Seeing from the other perspective. You can’t really take a walk in someone else’s proverbial shoes until you’ve experienced their job.

Take my temporary job for instance. The average day begins with getting up earlier in the morning than I want to on a Saturday and Sunday. [My Dad and I] walk through the doors, laden down with stuff we hope will sell that day. We say hi to a few of the vendors as we walk to our stand.

We pull back the tarp curtains and unveil our own little slice of heaven (I.e. the rickety tables with assorted junk piled on top waiting (once again, hoping) to be sold.

And so the day begins. It starts out slow and then fizzles out all together (that’s a quote from a song). A few early people infiltrate the building, walking at a shopper’s pace and sometimes stopped at a stand.

By noon, you should see a good number of people here. A couple hundred perhaps, and still all the vendors do terribly because no one wants to pay any money for anything.

This isn’t the end of our troubles. Eventually a vendor will get one of these pushy customers who insists on paying very little. Often times a vendor will succumb to the customer’s demands and sell for that price--possibly losing money in the process.

Some of us are lucky if we make $50 a weekend.

I don’t care what kind of department store logic you hold. The customer is NOT always right. In fact, they are usually the most wrong.

I can easily compare this experience to working at the country fair: Long hours, petty customers, and frustration galore. But at least I got paid at the fair.

December 9th

I could be too uptight. Perhaps that is my major problem. All day I’ve been sarcastic and bored and annoyed way too easily for my liking.

The kids who strum the guitar strings get on my nerves, the smoking habits of [the other vendor in our space] bugs me, and I’m tired of dealing with numerous people and not getting anything in return for it.

Also, I’m always on the lookout for shoplifters. Almost every customer that stays in the area for a length of time is checked up on several times. In fact, I’m doing it right now. [in between sentences I was peeking up at a few people milling about in our section.]

I don’t even know why I’m writing in this book like it’s my journal. Is it simply the sheer amount of boredom, or is this some sort of needed cathartic release? (And yes I know that a cathartic release involves emotions of pity and fear. I’m not sure why I used it in the wrong context).

**

That was a little taste of what it’s like to be a vendor in a flea market. Now that you got a glimpse at the other side of things, it makes the shopper’s job a little less arduous, right? Just think of what the sellers are going through.

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