Week 16 Family Food Portrait

This past weekend, my mom’s side of the family went to my grandparent’s house to celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary. We all went up Friday night so we could get up early (6 am)Saturday and go to the Collinsville flea market…yea! I’ve never been before, but my Aunt Sandra and Uncle LaDaryl (haha, I hope I got it right this time) go frequently and always find great bargains. Normally I would care about bargains, but for my first trip, I was looking for blog fodder.

It’s a Black Friday for Rednecks every Saturday. Just like the malls, you can get there as early as 4:30. You can’t even SEE at 4:30 in the morning! How are you possibly going to shop outdoors? You can buy anything here: produce, strollers, axe handles, axe blades, toiletries, cereal, clothes, paintings, four wheelers, shoes, any tool you can imagine (Earnest keeps ’em in a barn), dogs, chainsaws, farm animals, designer purses and sunglasses, knives, swords, Amish soaps/honey/jam, and of course, people’s junk that they want to get rid of.

I felt like I was in a Mexican marketplace: crooked shacks placed in about 6 narrow rows on unlevel gravel/dirt and LOTS of people. We only walked about 3/4 of the way down each row and I didn’t really know why. Uncle LaDaryl informed me that the top of the rows housed all the animals. Becaues I love animals, I thought, “Oh how cute, I want to go up there!” It’s not “cute” animals, it’s animals waiting to be slaughtered for dinner later in the day. That explains why I saw so many people carrying live chickens in potato sacks. There were plenty of cute dogs, though. Hopefully those were not being bought for dinner. I could have spent the whole morning playing with all the puppies. But I couldn’t trust the handwritten neon signs that told me they were up to date on shots. The sign should have said, “We didn’t fix our dog, and now we have a lot of puppies. Please take them home.” Some of the booths had so many puppies in one crate and they were literally sitting on top of each other, just crying for someone to take them home. I felt so bad for them, but with a baby coming, Sanibel has enough jealousy to deal with. I also came across a booth with a carseat! Covered in MOLD. Someone sarcastically suggested I get it, and I replied, “It’s got mold all over it!” The guy behind the booth yelled back, “Shutup, it’s only 50 cents.” And Ben, in all his wittiness, said, “You won’t be the one riding in it.” I can buy a coke for 50 cents that’s not going to give my baby respiratory issues, no thanks. One thing I saw that I thought was SO clever, especially for our poor child that will be so confused about what team to pull for during the Iron Bowl…a homemade outfit for a girl. Half in Auburn and half in Alabama. I would have bought it, but I don’t know what Baby VK is (August 24th, I will!) and it was a teeny weeny outfit that wouldn’t fit the baby when football season rolled back around. That was the extent of my morning at the flea market. Did I buy anything? Yes, a bottle of water and an avocado…for this: