At the Flea Market

Well, it was a nice Father's Day today. It was nice having Jake home, and it was nice, as always, to have Sam around as well. It would have been nice to have Helaina and Rachael home, but each of them are tied up with other endeavors. I think if they're unable to be home, the next best thing is knowing that they're happy where they are.

As for the rest of us, we headed to the flea market early this morning. Here below are a few astounding photos for your view pleasure. I apologize in advance for the blurriness of most of the photos. My hand must have been shaking with the excitement.

Here, as you can plainly see, is a box of beaters - no doubt painstakingly collected over many years. I'm not sure what possesses someone to start collecting beaters, but I suppose if I really wanted to know, I could have asked the guy selling them. I didn't want to know that badly.

 Here's a blurry picture of Jake perusing all of the many, many bargains.

This formally alive miniature person stood at the end of one of the tables. I'm pretty sure if followed me around half of the flea market.

Another guy was sitting on what appeared to be many hundreds of packages of brand new paper clips. All he has to do is wait, wait for that one special paperclip collector to show up and, bingo - pure gold.

At only "$4 each", it seems like a pretty safe bet that at least one of those jewels are real.

This was a little odd. Even if it's not being sold along with the half-full can of Coleman lantern fuel, who, besides this guy, would be interested in buying a Kotex dispenser? Maybe he figured he was going to make a fortune (Every Woman in the World x 10 Cents Ea. = $$$$)

True story: I actually overheard the guy that was trying to sell this thing, tell two women that this was "signed by the artist". Yes, he actually said "artist", and no, he wasn't laughing. Shockingly, the women left without buying it.

I'm always a little curious about people who sell new clothing at flea markets. It seems to me that they're going to an awful lot of trouble in setting up such elaborate displays. Who buys this stuff? I'm also wondering about those bottom-half mannequins. Do they come this way or do you have to buy the whole mannequin and break them in half? If they actually do sell bottom-half mannequins, who makes them? That has to be one of the worst jobs in the world, being a bottom-half mannequin salesman.

On the more normal side of things, there was a woman selling quite a few flowers. We bought several, which Jake planted for me when we got home.

And speaking of Jake, here he is with Sam, heading back to get one last bargain before we all left to go back home.

I even got to talk with both Helaina and Rachael before the day ended. All things considered, it was a pretty nice Father's Day.