So, you probably think I’m being overly positive if you read the previous post on being exuberant over a dollar.  It just proves there is a market and it is possible to make money there.  So long as that is true, then it is better than having no market or option.  But, let’s be realistic: the flea market grind is really hard.

For context, I have an interior booth.  It’s the first vendor on the left when entering from concessions.  It’s nothing extraordinarily special, but I cater to those starting at nothing and providing a mixture of inexpensive décor and kitchen essentials like plates, plus tons of glassware and mugs.  Somehow, I got riddled with basic jewelry that I refrain from  verifying, expecting it to be either ferrous or costume.  It does look good and there’s nothing wrong with accessorizing–I’m just nowhere near an expert.

An interior booth does not need prior or routine setup anywhere near as constant as an outdoor setup, rented tables or not.  You can rest on the expectation that your stuff doesn’t need to be hauled about at every session.  Yet, the amount of space you are afforded is minor when compared to an outside lot, although you have to factor vehicles and shipping.  In this zig-zag assessment, I can safely conclude that my booth, for all its faults, does not need constant maintenance.

And yet, I do just that.  I am constantly finagling and micromanaging what little space I have precisely because I have a wide assortment of stuff I just don’t know what to do with.  A lot of this has to do with receiving myriad hand-me-down items.  I’m not sure what they are, so it’s difficult to determine fair prices (or ones guests warm up to) and they occupies spaces intended for other wares.  I’m always trying and retrying different setups to look the part of a serious vendor, but there are too many moving parts.

Not that I don’t try.  I arranged my shelves into a horseshoe, so you enter the center and shelves are on all three sides.  Yet, I must scramble and drag out freestanding stuff like a personal trash pail or a newly acquired clothes rack, maybe a chair that can’t be set in the aisle.  If I can’t find a spot for high-volume items, nobody can get inside that horseshoe and I otherwise look utterly messy.  In fact, I’m seriously starting to rethink the wisdom of flea marketing, or wondering if the owners will accept part-time help.

I wonder because my booth is a hand-and-a-half affair–two lots, one of which is near the office entrance and includes a trophy cabinet along the wall full of pre-2010 relics and memorabilia, even a vehicle plate referring back to Operation Desert Storm.  That stuff belongs to one of the previous owners and it stands to reason they might want those things back.  I will have to look into it since, if they’ll allow for it, I can probably borrow the trophy space so long as I take care of the area.

Besides the trophy case, there is this large table where I’ve stocked a number of appliances.  Before, I had two large CRT-TVs there–ostensibly to attract the retro gaming crowd who will have sauntered past two neighboring vendors who sell all kinds of gadgets and electronics–but I did away with them for the sake of real estate.  Turns out, those remaining machines no longer function, whether by kinked cords or stiffened buttons or worse.

I gave one away, recommending he visit a repair shop to see if it can be repaired and salvaged, and then brought the other one home for storage.  Since I dropped it in an agonizing attempt to shuffle it through two locked doors (instead of preemptively opening both–I was in no mood to think that day), I am now ready to take a sledgehammer to the posture-murdering deadweight.  Repair jobs will have to wait, either way.

Even before I began earnest preparations for Saturdays outdoors, the flea market’s owner saw fit to install a couple clothes racks right in front of my space.  I don’t know what the deal is.  Do they think my stall is some sort of eyesore?  I’m trying my best, and I never heard them complain to me about it.  Still, whatever items sold from those racks, they will split the cash with me.

I pretty much said, “Fuck it,” and summarily accumulate sales from them, but set aside all the cash to a separate partition in my wallet that I won’t touch unless I need to make change.  In short, they’ll get all of it–I’m not in the mood to barter.  If I really wanted to parse cash, I’d inquire about a part-time position that assuages my rental costs and lets me pick at the market’s public website.

So, life in the flea market sounds pretty dire and life hurts when you’re cut off from the cash that you were pretty sure was somewhere in your den but somehow isn’t, but these are piddle-smite compared to the real agony faced each and every day.  Never mind I keep forgetting to bring a notepad or laptop with me to occupy breaktime, what exactly makes me the most cross at the flea market?

In one word: “Bathrooms?”

I ran a social experiment of sorts–rather, just a straight tally–where I would determine my greatest measure of human interaction over the course of the day.  It was a ripe moment considering one kid at the booth near mine was graduating today (his family failed to inform their benefactor, who was a bit lippy over it for the obvious reason that he didn’t want to be distracted from keeping watch on his booth’s wares), there wasn’t anybody nearby who would open the bathroom doors.  Now, why is this important?

Barring the obvious (when you got to go, you got to go), the policy states that, except for changing diapers, crippled/disabled clients and other mobility-oriented circumstances, the indoors’ bathroom stalls are reserved for actual vendors who have paid to be given a shot at selling here.  Read the above once again for good measure: I am the first vendor on the left.  Guess what else is there?  Other than the heater, which is directly above my main booth?

Right: the men’s & ladies’ bathrooms.  This has the unfortunate side effect where, once they’re inside and looking around, the first thing they’re thinking about is not anything on my shelves, but whether there is a bathroom.  For all the time I’m finagling and picking at my booth for maximum visibility, the only thing visible that interests them is another human being who can tell them where the fucking bathroom is.

I understand their unease (I’m still training myself to use the regular Port-o-Potties wherever possible since it’s an excuse to break away and take a walk for a moment–and the Port-o-Potties are not even unideal), but it’s a sublime and despondent hassle for me to explain the rules implicitly by first counter-questioning them, “Are you a vendor?”  But, the English-as-Second-Language crowd will merely repeat their question: “Bathroom?”

And therefore, I feel like a bad guy for pointing straight out the garage door, through the exit adjacent to the ATM, and straight across the toll booth, where those confounded Port-o-Potties are.  Since the kid on the other side of me wasn’t available, I just knew there would be a surplus and, for those with actual credentials, I pointed to the veteran right next to me.  Thus, I ran what I deem is a social experiment, but that’s just to be floury–it was just a count of how often I got asked.

However, there is the need for a control–a measure of how much interest my booth attracts.  It wasn’t pretty.  Setting aside the abysmal sales (again, window shoppers’ tight wallets), I checked how many instances of sales I got compared to how many times I was asked about the bathroom.  It was 4 (number of people I sold things to that day) against 10 (number of times someone asked me about the bathrooms, assuming the closest guy to them somehow always has the key when he never, ever did–not even once).

To put a finer point on the subject, of those sales, I received $10, or $2.5/sale.  Ergo, one dollar per time someone asked me about the bathrooms.

I’m not trying to find flaws or complain about minutiae.  This is honestly the routine at the flea market when I’m otherwise trying real hard to make rent.  I hate it.  I want to know two things: “when will people have disposable income?”; and, “when will I get a break?”  I keep losing money and sorting this stuff is beginning to make me think about tossing it into the dumpster so I can at least recoup losses by putting more time into a blog that’s invariably about bargain-hunting.

Regardless, I will still stick this through.  It isn’t like I’m not having fun, period–it’s just days like this you just wish you were chatting up that one hot mama in the parking lot just last week.  She was a vendor and it seemed as though we had similar merch and perhaps something in common.  Now, I sound like the Psychostick song, “In a Band to Get Chicks”, but there are other perks to flea marketing besides a trickle in funds.  They overshadow the peculiar issue of nobody getting money out of spectators on parade.

And I don’t fault the owners.  Everyone thinks they’re helping me by offering up wares for free (they don’t want to toss stuff since it isn’t kosher to waste things) and they somewhat are.  Also, if I find something cool but worthless to me yet valuable for someone else, I make it a point to offer it up.  Hopefully, I can turn things around or at the very least enter a position where I can clean the vendor bathrooms so they don’t smell.  Don’t misconstrue this as complaining–despite good weather this Sunday, I’ve had better days.

Never give up.  Good hunting.