Flea Market Fiasco

Many years ago, my mom decided to sell her old treasures at a flea market held semi-annually at the Finnish Cultural Center. Nancy and I always helped her out – sorting, setting up, and playing cashier at her table. Mom made a tidy profit at the first few sales. As time went by, however, she began to run out of things to hawk. Nancy and I started supplementing her stuff with our own. We would bring a few unwanted articles of clothing or used baby toys to each sale, and would be semi-successful at unloading some of our loot. Eventually, Mom completely ran out of things to sell, yet she still wanted to reserve our table at the flea market. The most recent sale was this past weekend. Dutifully, Nancy and I began getting our own crap together weeks ago. We organized, priced, then hauled our stuff – box by box – to the Finnish Center. We carefully arranged our table. We sat at the sale for over six hours. Jacob sold about 40 of his old Hot Wheels cars, so he made about 10 bucks. Other than that, though, Nancy and I sold about 10 things. Total. Now, it wasn’t an unpleasant day. We chatted with friends and family who wandered by. We ate donuts. We shared some laughs. But we departed the Finnish Center with almost all of the stuff we had come with, plus some additional toys that Jacob just had to buy from other people. Figuring that the table cost $30.00 to “rent” for the day, Nancy and I netted about . . . um, well, I think we came out about $10.00 in the hole. And even though I am no economics wizard, I realize that neither our time nor our money was well spent. Yet we keep coming back to the flea market again and again. Will we ever learn? Next sale: September.