My husband mocked me for buying a little enameled egg at the flea market, but he was in for a big surprise. First off, I have to tell you I’m a flea market junkie. I can’t help it, I just love the idea of browsing through the flotsam and jetsom of a hundred lives, and among the discarded trash find a lost treasure.
It all started when I was just eleven and would spend the summers with my grandmother in New England. On the weekends she and I would haunt every flea market or street fair for a hundred miles around, looking for ‘preloved jewels,’ which is what she called her finds. Let me tell you that even today as a mother and grandmother nothing gets my heart pumping like scrounging through a tray of bits and pieces and finding a glint of something that tells me I’ve struck gold.
My husband doesn’t understand it at all. Sam is a lovely man, sweet, hardworking, but my need to find treasure in the trash is something he just doesn’t understand. It’s the one thing we clash over, my bringing home ‘preloved jewels,’ or as he calls them, hoarder junk.
I suppose it would be easier for me to just give up my little hobby, but I honestly don’t want to. Nothing gives me as much pleasure as heading for a flea market on the weekend with $20 in my pocket determined to find a Van Goh for 50 cents. So no matter how much Sam rails at me for wasting money and hoarding junk, I won’t give it up.
Not that he has complained about it lately, in fact, this weekend he’s asked if he can come along with me, so let me tell you how this miracle came about
About a month ago I headed off to a nearby town for its street fair on a Saturday morning. I was tingling with anticipation, and my bargain-hound senses led me to a modest display where a man was selling knickknacks. There, among the porcelain cups and bisque shepherdesses was a little porcelain and enamel egg, about the size of a real egg.
I admit it wasn’t a particularly pretty or unusual piece, but I wanted it. “How much for the egg?” I asked the man. He sussed me out with beady eyes.
I could feel him taking in my sensible clothes, my handbag, and wondering how much I’d pay. “Just $25, lady, and let me tell you it’s a bargain!” he said. I know how the game is played so I gasped in horror and shook my head.
“$25 for a bargain-basement china egg?” I asked, “I’ll give you $5.”
One man’s trash is another man’s treasure. “FIVE DOLLARS!” It was the man’s turn to gasp. “For this piece of history?
For this tiny treasure? Lady this is French porcelain.”
“Right!” I shook my head, “So if I turn it over I won’t see ‘made in China’ stamped on the bottom?”
The man hesitated, which told me he wasn’t sure, so I pressed my advantage. “I tell you what, I’ll take it, without touching it, for $10.”
The man grumbled a bit under his breath but he wrapped up the egg in a bit of newspaper and took my ten dollars.
I was delighted! I had a feeling about the egg! I browsed the rest of the fair but my heart wasn’t in it.
I had my treasure so I headed home. I walked in smiling and gave Sam a kiss. He was sitting on the sofa reading his newspaper.
The story doesn’t end here — it continues on the next page.
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