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HERE IT IS, A SATURDAY AGAIN...and even drearier than the one before--when I waved you away from my tables at the flea market while I scrambled to keep things dry. That day, however, the light shower gave way to a fine mist, and then the rain stopped.

The slim trickle of shoppers became a light stream. And, lo and behold, I had a customer! ("Will you take a dollar for this book?" It's marked $1.50) But, alas, no sooner did my fellow vendors uncover their wares (and I myself lugged boxes from under the tables) than the mist of rain returned. But so did my son. We spread a good layer of white trash bags (effectively hiding the merchandise from view, of course). And then the rain let up. "I think the sun's going to come out,"said the hopeful vendor to the left of me. But those finicky, finicky clouds--very soon they were weeping again. Really only tiny tears, no sobbing, but enough to put the trash bags back on duty.

Soon enough, the morning was half gone. And afterwhile, so was the rain. Even I was tempted to believe this time the skies were clearing. "Go home," I told my son. "Go back to bed." I sold a red-checked tablecloth, a few more books. Wow, I thought, I do believe I'll recoup my ten bucks. And that's about the time the wind picked up. Down came a shower of acorns (from the tree I was blessed to be under, lucky me.) They were bouncing and pinging everywhere, making a fine display in the punch bowl. Furthermore, the leaves overhead were shaking and flinging their wetness thither and yon. Of course, now the trash bags were useless, whipping and flapping in the brisk little gale. Silly me, I'd thought that if the rain would go away, we'd have an ideal day. I hadn't given a thought to things going airborne, which abruptly the beach umbrella took a notion to do. I dove for it as it cartwheeled over the table and frantically hung on as it bucked and fought to take the lead in our little dance. Before I could end the do-si-do, I caught a glimpse of my neighbor to the left. She was generously rescuing my clothes rack--hoisting it with its heavy load of clothing up from the damp ground.

Arrrgh. The End!

(Well, that's what I was thinking: It's time to end this ridiculous endeavor! I am never trying this again! And of course I wasn't speaking of the dance.)


Ah, but, as you might know, Dear Reader, I couldn't simply up and leave. There on the tables sat (pitifully) most of the items I'd so recently unloaded, still begging for someone to take them away. And after a while, the wind died down. Right-side neighbor loaned me a heavy Christmas-tree holder to keep my umbrella stable. Left-side neighbor told me she's been doing this for years--"Some years are good," she said, "some years are bad." (Yeah, and some years you can barely believe you've so squandered your time! was my thought.)

On the tails of the wind, a sudden chill arrived. The temperature plunged about ten degrees, and I was cold. Sellers had been packing up and leaving one by one for quite some time. When the few shoppers ambled by and rummaged through the boxes of books or scanned my olio of objects, I joked with them that we'd had wind and rain and cold, but I was waiting for the hail.

In truth, I was only waiting on my good, supportive neighbors, who were both old hands at this. When they finally began to pack, I knew it was my cue to do the same, and I sprang into action. It was nearly noon, and the exodus from the park had steadily increased. By now my only wish was not to be the last to leave. That was my goal, and yet I wasn't going to hastily dump everything back into boxes without much thought (my all-too-frequent modus operandi). Hence, I packed with the future of every item in mind: the Bye-bye-and-Good-Riddance objects headed for the thrift shop and the Oh-You-Fool!-You-Know-You-Will-Regret-This items headed home with me.

I was working as quickly and efficiently as possible, but this was quite a job. At last all boxes were stashed in the car. The tables were folded and my son (who'd returned for just this task) slid them carefully into the space allowed. I threw the folded beach umbrella in on top, gathered up the stray pieces of newspaper (left from the re-packing) and snapped a photo of one neighbor's loaded truck (the other having left just moments before). It was one o'clock and the park was virtually deserted (only a few vendors sitting at odd spots, clearly thinking they would not give up!) I climbed into the car and headed slowly for the exit, the boxes and tables bumping and clunking their dismay at the whole fiasco.

As I pulled out onto the road, bound for the thrift shop, the laughing face of the sun broke through the clouds. I could almost hear him say, "Oh, so sorry! You were looking for me?!"


The (actual) End


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