anonymouscomrade:
flea markets have a general air of melancholy about them but it can be easily shaken, unlike the crushing despair that haunts thrift shops. customers at a flea market generally seem like they want to be there. a lot of the vendor booths will have some huge collection of stuff, whether it’s old comics, baseball cards, Wii/360 era shovelware, craft soaps, toys from the 60s, Coca Cola merch, racist woodcuttings, Funko Pops, DVDs of movies no human being has ever heard of, NCAA basketball championship t-shirts from the early 90s, or obsolete computer help books, but at least it feels like it’s supposed to be there, like it was meant to be sold as opposed to being surrendered because someone died or just didn’t want it anymore or something. at least, until you get to the estate booths and see the table somebody’s grandma was plausibly found dead sitting at, next to her bed and a case of adult diapers, anyway. but you go to a thrift store, though, and you see a mom trying to wrangle three kids while browsing secondhand underwear, or an old woman pushing a stroller with a dog in it stopping to examine a bunch of maga hats on the shelf, and you realize the reason the sign at the door says you can’t open carry in here is so they don’t have to clean up after you when you can’t take it anymore and shoot yourself
anonymouscomrade:
flea markets have a general air of melancholy about them but it can be easily shaken, unlike the crushing despair that haunts thrift shops. customers at a flea market generally seem like they want to be there. a lot of the vendor booths will have some huge collection of stuff, whether it’s old comics, baseball cards, Wii/360 era shovelware, craft soaps, toys from the 60s, Coca Cola merch, racist woodcuttings, Funko Pops, DVDs of movies no human being has ever heard of, NCAA basketball championship t-shirts from the early 90s, or obsolete computer help books, but at least it feels like it’s supposed to be there, like it was meant to be sold as opposed to being surrendered because someone died or just didn’t want it anymore or something. at least, until you get to the estate booths and see the table somebody’s grandma was plausibly found dead sitting at, next to her bed and a case of adult diapers, anyway. but you go to a thrift store, though, and you see a mom trying to wrangle three kids while browsing secondhand underwear, or an old woman pushing a stroller with a dog in it stopping to examine a bunch of maga hats on the shelf, and you realize the reason the sign at the door says you can’t open carry in here is so they don’t have to clean up after you when you can’t take it anymore and shoot yourself