Surviving the Local Market

There was no getting around attending the local market because we are right there at the library when it all starts. Besides, we can’t spend our lives running away from our source of guilt, right? As I’ve mentioned, we felt bad about not doing the local market, a fact exacerbated by the people giving us a hard time for it. I figured it would be easier just not to show up, but we figured if we’re not vendors, we can still support the market by being customers, and they are our friends and neighbors. Plus, the kids have a lot of fun.

I was there as the market got started, so I helped out with the setup, partly to assuage my guilt, but also because it’s nice helping out. The kids were already running around and having fun, so it boiled down to finding something to do while they ran themselves into exhaustion. This proved to be a lot more challenging than I imagined, and it reminded me of being at a college frat party, where I would wander around, looking for a place to camp out for the night because I failing miserably at meeting girls.

And, of course, I ended up spending more money than I wanted to, so I needed a place to hang. At some point, our friends, the H’s, had a booth, and I parked myself there and begged them to let me hang out. I’ll tell you, it ain’t easy to kill three hours without dropping a big chunk of change, but I'm learning. Interestingly enough, the market was rather slow, though the vendor turnout was strong. The kids had a blast playing in the grass, but I think next week I’ll hang in the library.

Until the next time, thanks for reading, and thanks to Daniel Göttler for the pic.