The Market

Never again. 

We'd planned this for. We were supposed to to this this time last year - get all of our unwanted stuff and sell it off at the Camberwell Market. Then COVID came and the markets were shut and our stuff sat around the house, or in Jay's case, in a storage, until and we got a chance to hold the stall again. 

On Sunday, we were up at the crack of dawn. Jay got to the market early, parking her car, arranging a trestle table and a hanging rack for clothes. I dumped the contents of my car with her and parked the car a distance away. It was time to rid myself of the stuff that's been accumulating for years. CDs, DVDs, tarot cards, books, clothes, nick-nacks - and the big seller - old tech - cords, chargers and modems. 

You get to see the best and worst of people at the markets. The people who come and pick over your stuff as you're trying to set up, complete with torches and the tenacity of pit bulls. They descend on you like a swarm of bees, shuffling through your stuff, not giving you a chance to set up. When the market opened at seven, we'd already made a few sales. 

Prices are kept easy - a dollar for CDs and single DVDs. $2 for DVD boxed sets. Clothes went cheap. Jay sold a leather coat from the 80s for $20. The woman got a steal. Jonella had gifted me a box of tech she wanted to get rid of. Cables and cords for a dollar. Chargers went for two. Half the box went by 12.30. 

People came and sifted, then sifted again. There were some very dodgy men who kept coming past. Aging men with long greasy hair, socks with sandals and coke bottle glasses. That sort. I'm thankful that there were two of us manning the stall. Jay lost a couple of pairs of earrings to wandering hands.

One of the good things about the market was the dogs. The stall next to us had a 14 week old Bernese Mountain Dog puppy named Rosie. I made quite a few visits to the pup, buying a cap off them when the sun came out in force - and to see the dog once again. 

And then after five hours of keeping an eye on stuff, selling things on for a bargain, swatting people away, dealing with cash (and that was a strange one, I haven't used cash since COVID started), we packed up the stall, returned the trestle and hanging rack, got the last of our stuff and went home, sunburned and exhausted and a couple of hundred dollars in my wallet. Jay did well - she raked in double what I made - but she was selling a lot more. 

I made a couple of stops on the way home. First to get some cat food. The boy needs his grub. Then a stop into Officeworks to drop off the unsold tech for recycling. The the local shopping centre to find some lunch as I was too exhausted to cook.  I also dropped off some stationery and unsold items into the charity bins. Maybe they will find a home for them. And we were done for the day, the memories of the human detritus which inhabit the markets, with their pocket torches, rude manners and greasy hair amd questionable personal hygiene. Please note there were a lot of nice people there, but the number of creepy men around the joint was disconcerting. 

But as I said. Never again. 

Been there, done that, nice way to get rid of some crap. But once is enough. 

Today's song: