Wednesday, August 4, 2010

Would the Flea Markets Please Flee?

Sioux City should get a new sign to welcome people to it.  It should say, “Siouxland: We Have Call Centers, Retail, Chain Restaurants and Flea Markets, Keep Driving to get to Wall Drug”.  With this type of media campaign, people would know Sioux City at a glance.  No frills, no lies. 

The current ad campaign for Sioux City, Iowa is “Successful, Surprising, Sioux City”.  Really?  Successful?  That applies to about 40 people, so let’s not lie here.  Surprising?  The only thing surprising is when you open up your windows in the morning and get a devastating whiff of pure poop.  The town so nice, we built our baseball park across from the sewer lagoons.  What city does that?  I can hear the radio ads now… “Come out to the old ballpark tonight, have a hotdog and soda, and relax to the warm gentle breeze that happened to float over our sewer lagoons.  And if you think the smell is bad, you should see our team!”  This is the city I live in and despite all of that, I lov… tolerate it.  Honestly it should say, “It would SURPRISING if anyone here was SUCCESSFUL since it is SIOUX CITY"

I know what you’re thinking already.  Gee Mark, aren’t you being awfully negative?  I’ll tell them they haven’t lived in the ghetto of downtown Sioux City and seen random people walk in their front door.  They haven’t seen their non-finished basement flood with water every time they got run-off from the next door parking lot.  You haven’t seen crackheads running around in the middle of the night, dodging traffic yelling at some other crackhead who ran off with his crackwhore girlfriend.  I’ve actually SEEN the Ghostbusters try killing one of the cockroaches in the Phoenix apartments (and yes, that was SOME cockroach).  I’ve shopped for houses and seen plenty that still give me nightmares to this day.  I’ll never forget the closet that looked like some poor Mexican kid had been scratching words into it… from inside of it!  You try crying yourself to sleep every night!

I also remember the ways the city has tried to revitalize itself.  Light rail anyone?  Yeah, whatever happened to that project since we have SO much traffic.  We would be the only city in the world with potholes in a rail system.  How about Free Parking on the Weekends to attract new business downtown?  Yay, now it costs nothing to do nothing!  Awesome!  How about the Beautify Iowa Project?  This town can’t even figure out a fast way to get from Riverside to Highway 75 (don’t hold your breath).  But the most impressive thing of all?  According to my own incomplete and made-up research, we have the highest Flea Market to Person Ratio in the United States.  Perhaps in the World.

The current Flea Market to Person Ratio runs approximately 1 flea market per every 50 people from my last count.  And what’s worse is that I see more springing up all of the time.  The Goodwills in this town can barely fit anything else into them.  Some donation centers won’t even take more stuff at this point because they're too damned full.  So the obvious answer is to sell, sell, sell.  But there are some important lessons to this all.

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Junk room or flea market booth?  You decide!

1) Nobody wants your crap.  Just because you don’t want to throw away that 1980’s baseball cap that used to be white and is now mostly brown and black, doesn’t mean you should try and sell it to someone else.  And if you didn’t want to wear that terrible shirt, what the heck makes you think someone else will?  Selling me a notebook that’s half used is just plain nonsense.  Stop the madness!

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Not even a stain stick would be a match for this bad boy.  $5 anyone?  Any takers?  Good as new!

2)  No, it isn’t made out of gold.  Sure, you may think that 1990 Darryl Strawberry card is worth $40, but if someone is at a flea market, they’re looking for a deal.  McDonalds toys aren’t truly that collectable either.  And just because you thought Beanie Babies were worth something doesn’t make it true.  This brings me to my next point…

3) Don’t sell me stuff you bought at Goodwill, on Clearance, or at the Dollar Store and mark it up.  Seriously, people really aren’t that dumb.  I’ll never forget seeing someone selling stuff with Dollar Store stickers on it for twice the price, or selling Mountain Dew shirts they got from Goodwill for $1 and trying to sell it for 5.  They’re hoping you’re blind in one eye and can’t see out the other.

4) Just because it’s old, doesn’t mean people want it.  I don’t think a cordless telephone will ever be considered an antique.  Nor do I think anyone actually wants to collect your dirty old lunchboxes.  Nor does anyone actually think Avon bottles are cool unless they’re a hobo looking for a cheap drink.  And never once did anyone think that just because that book is falling apart that it should be priced like a legendary manuscript.

5) Really, you can just bury your knick-knacks.  Why do people even have these things?  Knick-knacks are a guilty pleasure of the elderly and mentally unstable.  If you ever walk into a house filled with weird looking knick-knacks of clowns and people doing “zany” things, what’s the first thing you’re going to do?  That’s right, either you’re going to run out the door screaming or bring out the wheelchair for crazy Aunt Gertrude.  And why do those damned kitty knick-knacks keep looking at me?!  Seriously people, just because you fish doesn’t mean that people need to be reminded of it every step they take in your house.  It’s freaking creepy!

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1 in 10 molestations happens in a “fishing room” like the one pictured above.

6) Just because you own a flea market, doesn’t mean you should smoke like a chimney.  I mean, yeah, you’re surrounded by a bunch of crap, it has to be depressing, might as well smoke.  The customers really love that second hand smoke.  Makes it smell real down home.  Down home, at home, what’s really the difference?

I used to think flea markets were like a big yard sale with only slightly higher prices.  Then there’s Sioux City, where they think they can charge the same prices as Wal-Mart and get away with it.  Has anyone even counted all the flea markets in this town?  I guarantee you, if someone buried all of the stuff in these places in a landfill, at least they would eventually become something useful.  Like dirt or ground upon which we can build a baseball stadium (that was a good idea, right Milwaukee?).  Hell, we’ve already built one next to the poop pools, why not.

How the hell does anyone make ANY money besides the owners?  The people who pay for booths, do they really sell stuff?  I think some of them just find it cheaper than renting a storage unit for junk they just can’t give away for free.  Maybe they don’t realize this is what landfills are for!  Hell, just donate it to Goodwill and maybe they’ll charge a reasonable price!  None of this makes any sense to me.

By now, I’m sure I’ve offended plenty of you purveyors of flea market bargains.  And to be fair, yes you can find some bargains at flea markets.  It is rare, but sometimes people do sell stuff for reasonable prices that’s actually decent.  But as I’ve found out, in Sioux City, if you found one good bargain in the flea market, you’ve had a very good day.  I love yard sales too because the people there aren’t looking to get rich, they just want a few extra bucks to clear out some space.  I picture most of the people selling stuff at flea markets as middle aged women who smoke, leave their hair rollers in, walk around in moo-moos, and are portly.  Is that a fair picture?  Well it’s my stereotype and I’m going with it.  Sioux City, 90% Flea Markets, 100% Awesome!  I should really go into marketing.

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2 comments:

  1. have you been to goodwill lately? they charge over retail price for some things now

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