Flea Market Fracas

Last Friday and Saturday, Nancy and I booked a table at the Finnish Center Flea Market to sell some of our old stuff. Nancy had a lot of nice things for sale, I had a few items, and Irma donated several pieces of jewelry. When the doors opened Friday morning, lots of shoppers came pouring into the flea market. Not very many stopped at our table despite the fact that we had awesome items at very reasonable prices. Luckily, Nancy was able to sell some of her pieces of fancy crystal, or we might not have even made enough money to pay the price of our table. After buying lunch for myself, any profit that I earned had disappeared. We looked forward to the next day, as Saturday shoppers typically come in droves and make big purchases.

The next morning, flea market customers were few and far between. Nancy and I walked around a bit and discovered that the lady in charge of the sale had decided to lock the front doors of the Finnish Center for the day. We found a sign outside telling people to use a side door. We were confused. It ends up that a few of the Finnish Center bigwigs had set up flea market tables - free tables, I might add - in a side room and wanted to corral shoppers past their wares before they went into the large, main selling room. The problem, however, was that most customers just tried the front doors, found them locked, and then left. Or, if they did find their way to the side door, they thought that the whole sale was in that small room, and exclaimed, "This is all there is?" I can't tell you how many people walked away. Nancy and I spoke to "Lady-in-Charge" and politely asked her to unlock the front doors. She refused. We talked to her husband, who is an executive on the FC board and who also had a selling table in the side room. He agreed to unlock the doors. "Lady-in-Charge" saw her husband opening the front doors and all hell broke loose. After she screamed at him, she screamed at us. She wanted those doors locked and that was that. There was no reasoning with her and she proceeded to rudely tell everyone that she had the right to make that decision. Word spread through the flea market like wildfire and many vendors were so frustrated with her decision that they vowed never to come back. At the end of the day, the doors stayed locked and we made very little money. If nothing else, though, it was definitely the most interesting flea market in which we had ever participated!