Flea markets...

I went to one yesterday, with my sister. I hadn't been to a flea market for a very long time, so I don't know what I was thinking I would find there. I enjoyed the ride through some of Kentucky's horse farm territory and the green, rolling hills. I almost enjoyed getting lost trying to follow the directions I had (only because the scenery was beautiful). The sign at the itsy-bitsy road into the flea market venue didn't face the road from either direction, so the only ways you would see it as you drove by, were 1) if you stopped dead in the middle of the road (giving all those behind you a little adrenaline and reflex check) at just the right place, and looked east. Of course, if you were on the side of the road heading south, you'd have to have pretty amazing turning ability--kind of like Michael Phelps at the pool wall in a 100-meter or more race--or you'd have to do a little turnaround to get back to the skimpy road's entrance; or 2) throw caution to the wind and drive east from west across the roadway from the gas station on the other side of the entrance. Chicken heart that I am, I chose the turnaround, and I had so much fun doing that, that I did it three times--I kept missing the minute (my-noot) opening to the road.

So, finally, after a lot of effort and half my gas tank emptying, I made it. I drove down the lovely, tree-lined dirt road to a bunch of metal buildings. No signs or labels showing where to enter or start the flea festivities. I parked and looked for my sister. She said she'd be wearing a red top and waiting out in the parking lot at the far end--where I sat. I didn't see anything red, except for a couple of veins in my eyeballs as I checked my rear view mirror so I could pull out of my parking space and search for my sister. I did see someone at the opposite end of this line of buildings, but she was wearing pale apricot. I have affronted individuals before, in public, whom I thought I knew but found out I didn't, so I am a little reluctant to go on the attack anymore, especially now that I'm aging and my eyes, even with glasses, just don't capture clearly what I look at in the distance. (I love Monet and all the rest of those Impressionists for making it "okay" to see things in a blurry, painterly view!) I slowly worked my way down to the place where I had seen the apricot-shirted person, but, by the time I got there, she had disappeared. I decided to just park, get out and look around and hopefully find someone, anyone wearing a red shirt. I was ready to redo my genealogy....

After a few minutes of my standing, staring, turning my head and looking hopelessly dopey (as in Snow and the Seven Guys), my sister appeared. She was wearing apricot. Now, I'm pretty good with colors, but no matter how long I looked at her top, I couldn't put it in the red category. When I asked her about the color, she said she'd spilled something on her red shirt and had to change. When I asked her about parking at the far end, she said she found a parking place right off the entrance road and took it. Without further ado, I unseated her as the person in charge of meeting up anywhere. From now on, we'll have to confirm fashion and parking via cell phone en route. The downside of that is that I won't have any funny stories to put on my blog.

To continue our adventure, we entered the first building. Oh my! There were so many booths, so much to see, so little to buy. Hadn't I just gotten rid of a bunch of stuff at our Mom's house before making my journey to Kentucky? Well, it must have followed me here! There were some scary items--T-shirts and other paraphernalia with gory themes, some lethal ones--guns and knives, some items that looked as if they would fall apart as soon as you paid for them, some that were dusty and dirty (I have that at home already, thank you), and a few things that were clever and worth the price. These latter items were all sold. Guess the early birds found the only worthwhile "worms". There were food concessions with everything fried, including the napkins and plasticware (just kidding). We took a pass on that because the lines were long and we still had several buildings ahead of us. In our last building, at the very end, there were cold cases full of meat. The cases were like those you see at your local grocer's, except they were off-color, dirty and the compressors were making sounds like a B-52 about to take off. The meat, and maybe it was just the lighting, appeared to have an, uhm, certain hue to it. Both my sister and I wondered if the meat was actually cold enough not to give everyone in the western end of Kentucky food poisoning. We were both tempted to walk over to the cases to touch the wrapped packages to see if they were cold to the touch, but both of us knew we'd gasp loudly if we found they weren't, so we, just like Elvis, left the building. I read the newspaper today. I didn't read about hospitals overflowing with food-poisoned flea marketers, but then, maybe I'm a day ahead of myself. We'll see what tomorrow brings. I may call my stockbroker and buy stock in whoever manufactures Donagel or Kaopectate.

By the way, other than the Avon eye-makeup remover cream my sister bought, the only thing we left with was possibly fleas. I've been itching and scratching ever since our little visit yesterday...too bad they weren't selling flea collars. That I could have used.