Really a True Horror Story
Really a true horror story, and I can prove it. Look inside... I dare you.
Up at 4:30 am, even in the dead of winter at below zero, even snow bunnies and beasts of the winter have more sense to stay underground...I am up and ready to be one of the first in line at the local flea market at the County Fair Grounds.
Standing in line with a cup of coffee that quickly becomes a frozen coffee popsicle I bow my head and raise my eyes to appear as if I am not really interested in the crowd, peering out of my muffler searching the faces in line to see my friendly competition. Actually they are not friends, I don't know them that well, they are acquaintances, they are quite crazy, like me, standing in line at 5am holding frozen coffee popsicles and pretending to be brave and warm and more interested in fishing lures than dirty old good for nothing fountain pens. My real pen friends have enough pens by now and they are home in a nice warm bed.
Thirty minutes after the gates open at 5:30am I see some of them already starting to leave. I have just begun and have found nothing, yet. They have those stupid big buttons on their hats and scarves....I BUY OLD FOUNTAIN PENS....and they have that smug crooked smile that says..."Aha! Got 'em all...you are wasting your time here, sonny boy!" ...and they are hugging cigar boxes tightly hugged to their chests, filled with either fishing lures or fountain pens.
The whole key to success at a flea market is finding and making friends with, gaining trust of, paying dearly to for ho-hum third-tier pens just so they remember you...dealers and "pickers" who don't care a twit for old fountain pens other than finding those crazy fountain pen buyers that get up in the dead of a winter night at below zero temps just so they can stand first in line with a frozen cup of coffee popsicle wearing those stupid buttons that say I BUY OLD FOUNTAIN PENS hoping to find those dirty old good for nothing fountain pens they happen to have that cost next to nothing found in a pile of junk which they hope to charge the same price as "in the book" by that Bowen guy....say, this stuff must bring a pretty penny!
Well, to make a long story short....I made dear friends with these fishing lure collectors this last Spring. We had fun this summer running across one another at the flea markets, they are collecting fishing lures and I convinced them I collect old books and lace doilies.
I have invited about 12 of them over this weekend for a friendly early evening BBQ and a quiet walk on my manicured garden path across my prairies and into my woods after sunset. Just as it is getting nice and dark, yes, nice and dark so we can gaze up into the dark sky at the stars along my dark path and where, trust me, I promise them a nice surprise at the end of the path.
As you can see...as a good host, I have prepared enough room to comfortably accommodate at least twelve of my closest flea market fishing lure collecting friends.
Watch that last step on the path, my preciousssss ones.....
The photograph of the surprise waiting at the end of the path was not preserved.