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SO, READER DEAR, HAVE YOU THE TEENIEST ORT OF interest (this would be more than an iota of curiosity and less than a burning desire to know) what course was charted for the X-less items my kids and I extracted from the attic? Do you wish to hear about my hare-brained scheme to drag big boxes stuffed with stuff to the semi-annual flea market being held at a nearby park the very next day?

While I can say that overall the birthday-bash of a weekend proved to be a delight, I've had to let some time elapse to fuzzy up the memory of arising at 4:30 am (in the blackness of night) on Saturday morning, waking my son (bless his heart, he valiantly agreed to take the early stint in the plan of Assistance to Mom), cramming a few more boxes, a beach umbrella (for shade) and a clothing rack in the fully-loaded car, and creeping down the road to the park. The air was damp with moisture, but no raindrops fell on the windshield. This is good, I told myself. People will come in hordes. I've driven past this park on flea market days in the past and it's always swarming with buyers, the parking lot spilling over with cars, the waiting traffic clogging the roadway.

Rolling down my window at the park entrance, I handed the guy with the flashlight and the orange windbreaker my ten-dollar bill. "Where shall I park?" I asked. "Oh," he responded, "There are lots of spaces. Where would you like to park? Do you want to be under a tree?"

Wow, I thought, I get to be under a tree! But...hmm...I wondered at the availability of spaces. I'd been told when I called to reserve a spot that about 120 vendors usually show up and most of them come early. Here it was, the advanced hour of 5:30, and there didn't seem to be a frenzy of activity. Well, nevermind, there was soon a small frenzy in my allotted space. My son helped set up the tables and unloaded boxes from the car. Dear me...what a lot of boxes! As if I hadn't had more than enough unwanted items of my own, all of my children had volunteered their rejected paraphernalia, too. Sorting through the hodge-podge and making an attempt to arrange it on three (what now seemed like miniature) tables took a jumbo amount of time (In fact, everything about this crazy scheme was sucking up time like a giant vacuum cleaner in a sandbox--the night before we'd ditched our plans for eating out due to sorting, pricing, packing up, loading up, and,uh, what you might call complete exhaustion).

But now the sky was beginning to lighten. I'd set up the clothing rack, untangled the clothes hangers and hangered each piece of clothing. Almost everything was on display (okay, well, if a buyer were to crawl under the table and dig around a bit) and almost everything had a price (I was still ripping pieces of masking tape off the roll, marking with a price and affixing to items which appeared to lack one. Unfortunately, the next step was second-guessing myself immediately, ripping off the old price, sticking on a new one--each time picking laboriously at the torn edge of the tape to start a new piece, muttering under my breath.

Okay, now...now let the rush begin!--the rush of buyers flocking by my tables, eagerly searching for a cut-glass punch bowl, or a woven bedspread, maybe a remote-control car or a set of maracas, and, by all means, let the book buyers begin their search here!

With first light I could see that a trickle of shoppers was wandering through the rows of makeshift sales stands and tables. Alas, something else that was now clearly visible was the threatening sky. "Would you take your car back to the house," I begged my son "and get something to cover this stuff in case it rains? Just grab a wad of trash bags if you can't find anything else. And, oh, good grief, you'd better hurry!" Vendors on either side of me were shaking out their large plastic sheets (Clear ones--they clearly knew the ropes!).

My son left just moments before the rain arrived. It wasn't a heavy downpour, just a dainty sprinkling. Perhaps this wouldn't be too bad. If I tilted the beach umbrella over the tables, it protected a tiny area, and I frantically moved more things beneath the tables (It was getting crowded down there-- junky and crowded, far less than a tempting display).

Arrgh. What with all this detailed telling of the tale, my memory's not so fuzzy anymore. You're going to have to wander elsewhere while I take a big deep breath and calm myself. The rain is slight, but it's persistent, and I'm busy. I'm busy moving things. I'll tell you more another day.


(to be con'td)


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