the big bust
I had a craft fair this weekend (selling my candles), the first one since early June. I bailed on a mid-June one that I did last year for various reasons and a mid-August one I’ve done the two years past (here in my town) because it’s just too dang hot. The forecast for us was calling for rain and when I got up at 5.15am on Saturday, it was raining. Not hard, but enough to start to ruin my day. Steve suggested it might not be raining up north where we were going, so we went ahead with our plans. It was not raining up there… until we set up and sat down. Then it started and did not stop… all… friggin… day… long.
I think that I might officially label this as the worst fair ever if it were not for the fact that last year at the August one, it was so hot that we all got sick. That would be me, Steve, guy next to us we’ve come to know (didn’t take E to that one, too hot). In fact, the guy I just mentioned was also at this one and, poor thing, he drives up from Arkansas, he didn’t do well either, and took of even earlier than we did. I did have the pleasure of meeting his wife for the first time though.
So as Steve and Elijah are standing in line to get a free mini-baseball thing a real estate company was giving out to the kids, he called and said he was tired of holding the umbrella. I was kinda like, “well what do you want me to do about it?” Lol. Sarah and I were sitting in the booth playing our patron game of Mancala and had nothing else to do. It was raining enough that people were just walking by and not even stopping to look at anything (not just my booth, about 98% of people were not carrying purchased merchandise, either). I couldn’t help but wonder why they were there in the first place if they were just going to walk down the street in the rain then leave. Of course, that would be the people that actually showed up, only about 5% of the crowd from previous years. So he called again and said that he didn’t care what Sarah and I did, he and E were leaving when they got out of the baseball bat line. That would leave me and Sarah to sit there for hours alone because it would take both vehicles to get everything out of there so we started packing up and were almost finished by the time the boys got back.
While we were packing up, the guy next to us and a passerby were trying to convince me to stay. They kept saying the rain would let up soon, but it obviously never did while we were there. We were not the first to leave early either, many didn’t even show up in the first place. But the guy next to me really caught me off-guard with that because he didn’t even have a tent! He and his wife sat there under umbrellas in the rain all day! I don’t think he moved for six hours, I am not kidding. So you’d think he’d want to leave before we did…
We left right at 1pm, having loaded everything back up in the rain. My boxes were all wet. This has happened once before, but this time every box was wet in some manner whereas last time it was just the bottom ones (we stack them under the table). One of the boxes was so bad that I had to wrap it in a table cloth to keep it in tact. They’re all pretty much useless now. I had to throw one away and try to fit the candles that came from it into a tub with smaller candles. Got all but four in there, had to put those four in the cooler. That was interesting because I forgot about them until that evening and when I pulled them out they were ice cold and waterlogged. They dried out nicely though. ;-)
But while it was raining, at least Elijah had some fun. He’s a weird kid, I tell you what. He throws a fit when I wash his hair but he was totally out playing in the rain despite Steve’s constant threats. He kept playing with that orange #20 Tony Stewart car he and Steve made months ago at Home Depot in the water until the paint was totally running and there was orange everywhere… his hands, arms, my white table cloths, my leg… His car did NOT dry out nicely, unlike the candles. It’s faded, missing even more stickers than before, the wood glue dissipated and the wood is warped. There are spaces between the pieces of wood now, he keeps asking me what’s wrong with it. Can’t say we didn’t try to warn him. But no, he just kept running it through puddles and yelling, “I won! I won! I won the Piston Cup!”
Yes, a day wasted. Fees and gas money and food money (where we normally would not have eaten out) down the drain… but I’ll do that one next year. Just the chance you take with these craft fairs. Another reason why I will eventually be only an internet and other-method-of-selling business. I hate craft fairs. There’s a few I guess I could stand to continue to do for however long they last… indoor ones in the fall. Sarah and I can do indoor fairs just the two of us, especially if it’s one where I rent tables (then we don’t have to cart any around).
Of course, my consolation was that while we were out there wasting time, later I found, there were people on my website placing orders. Shipped those today. ;-)
