Wednesday, August 01, 2007

Get Tha' Funk Outta Mah Face Part II

Saturday dawned hot and steamy. We went off and had a lovely breakfast at one of Joe's childhood diners, mere blocks from his home. My new favorite breakfast is gyro meat and scrambled eggs. Plus lots and lots of coffee. We left the diner fat, full and optimistic. A few errands (Gawd help me, Walmart on a Saturday morning) and we were off to the site.

Saturday was the actual Cabbage Roll. Which was held at the steepest hill in town NEAR the fairgrounds where the craft show/festival was located. We got there about one thirty, set everything back up, and sat down under the tent to wait for customers.

The lady in the neighboring space had already been there for some time, and started complaining as soon as we started setting up. The day before, she left in the middle of the afternoon to go to Walmart to buy a tent, then proceeded to enlist everyone's help to set it up.
Not very well prepared. We didn't like her immediately because she was selling imported Chinese 'County/Primitive' decorations, and that is CRAP in our book. She didn't even bother hiding the boxes that said Made in China on them. Gah. Anyway, she continued her winning ways on Saturday by complaining that she was hot, she was tired, her husband was at the casino and she wanted to be there, she wasn't selling anything AND she had to pee, but couldn't pee in a porta potty because she had claustrophobia and would get a panic attack if she closed the door.
This went on all afternoon. We finally told her to go across the road to the Weis market (at night the neons were burned out so it looked like the Vei market) and pee there. "Oh!" This hadn't occurred to the dumbass before, it was just easier to bitch and moan.

So we waited for customers. And we waited. And waited. And waited. A few folks strolled by, and the polka band took to the stage and tuned up. (Gentle reader, I'm just a white girl from the country, and haven't been much exposed to polka music. I'm just sayin) The polka band played all day. I heard more polka in that Saturday afternoon than I had in my whole life. And it wasn't a bad thing. I have to say it was pretty happy music, and I found myself toe-tapping right along with the rest of the polka fans. Who knew?

We spend a couple hours people watching and sampling food from various vendors. (Potato pancakes AND jambalaya...yum!) About four o'clock, my head rolled back, and I fell into a hot steamy nap in my chair. I guess I spent about a half hour with head back, mouth gaping open, sound asleep in the chair. After I woke, Obbie followed suit. At this point, we had made two sales. Obbie woke with a powerful thirst, and trucked off to the beer tent to get us a pitcher. (Side note: In my neck of PA, one cannot buy beer in the street. The very IDEA of selling pitchers of beer at a festival gets all the tightasses in an uproar since adults can't be expected to behave themselves when there is a beer truck present. At least in Central PA. Northeastern PA is a different story, and BOY do they sell beer! It's very regulated, as you show your ID to the police officer at the beer tent, and he wraps a nice little wristband on you to show that you're legal. You buy the tickets from another cop next to him, THEN turn the tickets over to the fireman who is lucky enough to be manning the tap. It's a helluva system, let me tell you.)

The naps, the pitcher of Bud and the polka music put us into a really good mood. By this time, the roll was over, and people were trickling into the fairgrounds. Some things were sold, and more people just came over to just chat. This was why we do craft shows.

Earlier in the day a lady bought a bracelet, but oohed and aahed over another one. Later, she brought her husband over and showed HIM the other one. It wasn't a very subtle hint, and hubby knew he'd be back for it. So it was not a big surprise to any of us when hubby came back for the bracelet. We put it in a neat little gift bag for him and he grinned broadly and was off.

Later in the evening, the lady came SCREAMING over to us, waving her arms, "LOOK LOOK! DID YOU KNOW HE WAS GOING TO DO THAT?!?!" We smiled and congratulated each other on another happy customer.

By the time the last band (no more polka) was well into it's first set (around 9:45), we'd had enough, and were ready to go home. By then we'd made several sales, talked to everyone at the fairgrounds at least twice, and had sampled two pitchers of Budweisers finest (a contridiction in terms) We bid our new friends a fond farewell and headed back to the hotel. The long way, because Obbie wanted to show me some sights. As we passed the last part of town, off in the distance, I saw some lights, and along the side of the road was a sign "Sobriety Checkpoint Ahead" Oh SHIT. (Even thought two pitchers of beer were consumed several hours and a sandwich before, I didn't need that kind of hassle. I was well out of the range of intoxication, but didn't want to risk any of the BS that goes with a checkpoint. Luckily, we were near a housing development, and I made a nice left turn to go back into the development and check out one of Obbie's friends houses. We went straight to the hotel after that, and climbed into the hard ass bed in the shitty Red Roof Inn, and both went right to sleep. It had been a very long day.

Sunday was uneventful, we loaded up, stopped at the local mega grocery for breakfast, coffee and shopping and came home.

As you can tell, I'm in a better mood today, because this isn't nearly such a bitchy post. I am annoyed that we didn't come close to making any money, but again, we had a bunch of fun. So, it is what it is...AGAIN. We have no shows in August (at least I'm saying that now) But two good ones each in September and October, and possibly one or two in November. Thank the Gods I don't have to rely on this for my rent!!

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