Flea Marketers Gonna Market

Hick has a new project. He has entered the flea market business for himself! However...as one of his cohorts told another one of his cohorts on Hick's first day being open for business, "I've never known Hick to sell anything, but he sure likes to buy stuff!"

Here's the deal. There's a storage shed business that opened up within this past year. It's on the edge of town, has a big gravel parking lot, fencing around the storage units, a little office building, and has storage units arranged in a big U shape. Hick was waiting for a spot to open up beside his buddy. He waited all month. When the owner called and told him a unit was available, Hick jumped at the chance, even thought it's across the U from his buddy.

Hick's storage unit is a double one. It goes from the inside of the U to the outside. He has two doors. He says that will be beneficial in hot weather, because he can get a breeze. Right now he's keeping the back door closed. "The wind really blows up there on the hill!" The high Saturday was 45 degrees.

The cost to rent the storage unit is $85 a month. Saturday, Hick took in $50. He was quite excited about that, since he only has a little bit of stuff put out, and there was a small crowd of buyers. It IS the end of the month, and the weather was not great, and it's the last Saturday before Halloween. He said one of his buddies told him that he usually makes $150 a weekend.

Here are the wares Hick had on display. It took me a long time to figure out that the picture beside that cross-stitch thingy was actually a mirror, showing Hick taking the picture!

This is stuff from my mom's house. Crafty things. Hick is doing this as a good deed, since the money is not really his, but split between me and my sister the ex-mayor's wife. Shh...she doesn't know Hick is open for business yet. He's keeping a ledger of what he sells, taking a 20% fee like resale shops do, and dividing the rest 50/50 between me and Sis. I don't begrudge him that 20% at all. He's doing all the work. I'm not even charging him rent on those white plastic tables that I bought for my classroom.

You can see Hick's back door (heh, heh, I said Hick's back door!) in the rear (heh, heh, I said rear!) in the background. I think there used to be a partition where that pole (heh, heh, I said pole!) is, but Hick asked that it come down so he could have the double unit. You can see more stuff that he hasn't dealt with yet, just waiting to be displayed.

Hick is excited about his new pastime. He virtually glows when he talks about it. But that could just be from sitting in the cold all morning. He bartered three tubs of buttons to another seller for some shelves so he can display more stuff. He's also making a cabinet with glass doors for things he doesn't want the people touching.

With Christmas on the horizon, he's going to offer some outgrown toys that are currently chilling under our pool table. He has talked about making some stick horses or those wheely stick push toys that have flapping feet made out of rubber. Not for this year, probably, but for the future. Old people like to buy retro toys for their grandkids, he says. He also has his eye on stuff at the auction, telling me that he thinks about what he could resell it for.

I hope he doesn't see a lady on Antiques Roadshow with a valuable button discovered at a Backroads flea market.