Quiet Nights & Strange Days

Sometimes I wonder about people.  How much craziness is out there?  I've been doing a bit of people watching lately.  In my own defense, it's because I'm trapped behind a table in a huge flea market unable to turn away from the vast array of humanity that parades in front of me each weekend.

I normally let people's shenanigans roll right off me, but I figured what the heck...write about it, because some of it is so funny I just had to laugh.

We've been doing pretty good at the market, selling odds and ends plus the denim booty bags.  Of course, everyone at the flea market is looking for a "bargain" if you have $2 on something they will say "Give you a dollar"...sort of like dangling a worm in front of a hungry fish, hoping you'll jump at the dollar.  Most times I cave and they get it cheaper.

My first sale of the day was to a little old Asian lady that wanted any jewelry piece for a dollar.  That was like all the English she knew..."You take $1.00?" After she came back three times I gave up and let her have it.

Well, all of a sudden, along comes this white vision - long gauzy white skirt, white shirt, white shawl, white shoes, white pocketbook and to complete the look a fedora style white hat with lots of, you guessed it, white feathers!  As she was passing our table she was announcing to everyone who could hear that she was the Angel of light, and she started to bless everyone. People just stood still and stared at her...she turned on her heels and went back from whence she came...a vision of white moving so fast as to be floating down the aisles of the flea market.

Moments later, I look up to see a small crowd at the other end of our aisle...no it wasn't the angel...it was two men in drag, each pushing a baby stroller that had a Maltese type doggy in each...the dogs were wearing vests and cowboy hats to match their owners. I love dolls could I get away with pushing a baby doll in a real carriage? I wonder.

Of course we had to have an irate customer too. We are selling these tiny little key chain type knives for a $1.00....a boy about twelve had come to the table and wanted to buy one, he was with a woman that appeared to be his mother.  We will not sell anything dangerous to a kid, the woman was asked does  he have your permission to buy this? She said yes. 

Well, about one hour later a rather large gentleman comes over to our table and confronts my brother in law...quite nasty about it too. "Are you the idiot that sold this to my son?" "Don't you know you are not allowed to sell knives to kids?" "I'm going to report you to the office for this, in fact, I'm going to look for a cop right now"...he had the woman with him that had given permission. Standing silent not saying a word.  We told him she gave permission for him to buy it, she denied doing so.  The guys starts screaming that his kid is brain damaged, a danger to himself and others, not allowed to have any object like a knife.  We gave him back the dollar and told him to leave us alone. My question is, if the kid was that bad what was he doing letting him roam around without supervision since whoever the woman was did not step up to the plate.  Oh, I forgot to mention when they came back the woman is holding a baby boa constrictor wrapped around her arm with an Timothy Leary smile on her face.

Then we had a lady who wanted to buy one of our bags, she picked it out, went to get her money and discovered her wallet was missing. She was a little elderly and was getting very upset because she was a tourist and all her ID was in the wallet.  My sister offered to walk back along the path she had taken through the market to backtrack.  They found that she had indeed left it at another vendors booth..but a woman had picked it up and told them that she would turn it in to the office.  So off to the office my sister and the lady went. Nothing turned in. We gave the lady my sister's card with her phone number just in case and she gave us her cell number.  She had additional money on her so she still bought the bag she liked from us.  But we felt bad hoping that the other people would do the right thing.   The lady called my sister later that night to tell her that the woman had called her and they were going to bring the wallet to her. The person explained that she didn't "trust" just leaving it to lost n found when she felt she could deliver it herself and know that it made it back to it's owner.

That made me feel good all over. Can't wait to see what happens this weekend.