Haggling my way to Hell

My friends are trading a peacock for a chicken across the alley when I see the set laying on a box. The florescent pink poster on the back of his van reads "XXX adult DVDs $3.00." The middle aged man reading a magazine next to the car also has a few chipped glasses and frying pans, knick knacks resembling angels, and stained kitchen appliances on card tables. But the silver spoons, tarnished forks, and half-polished knives are on the side of his booth territory laid out in cases on an old crate. Another much smaller florescent sign proclaims "$60.00."
He is sweating profusely at 9:30 in the rural Alabama morning and I wonder how he will survive Trade Day in the heat. I trace my finger along the patterns in the plated silver and pick up a knife to test its weight. As if I knew anything about silver!

My friends watch as a fellow farmer reaches into the old wooden cage and grabs the peacock by the legs, flips him upside down with nary a peck (those suckers are dangerous; I watched the bird sharpening his beak earlier that morning when we were trying to catch him), and shoves him into a metal cage housing a turkey. "Do you think he would take thirty?" I ask Joe. I had first hoped I could get XXX DVD man down to twenty but Joe, who lives on the farm across the street and is much more familiar with Trade Day etiquette, scoffs at such a lowball. And he isn't even the one selling the silver. "Thirty can be the start of haggling," Joe suggests. Damn. I hate haggling.

Aha. Ebay. I pull out my I-fancy-phone. A huge tattooed guy with a buzz cut and truckers hat stops and says something to me but like many of the interactions I've had in the deep south, I have to ask him to repeat whatever he just said. "You're going to have trouble getting a signal out here in the sticks!" he laughs. I laugh too and agree, willing the Ebay page with "Wm Rogers IC" cutlery displayed to appear. He just stands and smiles as I continue to wait. I'm not sure whether to talk to him more or move to get a better signal. No need for either- we both smile, he moves on, I stay put, Ebay comes through. I figure out that $60 for the 40 or so pieces, even if a few are mismatched, is a deal. But being at a flea market/trade day extravaganza where the people-watching far outweighs the value of most of the stuff, I feel like I should still get him to lower the price. That's what you do at a flea market right?

Now my friends are grabbing squawking and flapping hens and delivering them into the wooden cage on a wagon to take back to the farm. Five hens later they secure the cage and start pulling the feathery lot towards the road where the occasional rusted pickup and semi scream by.

I need to decide. I have a flight to catch.

XXX DVD man tells me that the set is over a hundred years old and that spoons sell on Ebay for $3.00 each. "Oh really?" I say innocently, secretly clutching my I-fancy-phone in my purse. My friend Joe approaches and I get nervous because I am embarrassed by my haggling skills or lack thereof. (What was I thinking, twenty bucks? Ha!) I know XXX DVD man wont take $30. "Uh, I really like them, but uh, I can't really spend $60." I am not making eye contact as I stare at the silver. "My mother said I shouldn't take less than $50." he says. Shit! His mother? He mentions his mother? Is that a sales maneuver? Jesus, Jenny, she's probably at home in a wheelchair strapped to a ventilator.
"Will you take $40?" I say sheepishly, knowing he won't, knowing I'm a bad person for even offering. His mother is at home smoking a pack of Marlborough reds alternating with puffs of oxygen and watching her programs as her son sells off the family silver.
"$50." he says.
"OK." I say. I pull out my purse and yup, I only have three twenty dollar bills. Rule number one of haggling: have the correct change for what you are willing to pay. Nothing is more awkward than lowballing someone saying you can't pay their price, getting your way, then handing them the amount they originally asked for (and was still a good deal) and forcing them to make change. Shit, his mother? Is she OK? Does she need a new house dress or more kibble for her 20 cats?
He hands me back $10 and we fold up the cases. He even throws in a polishing rag.
"Thank you sir." I say, wishing him a nice day.
He wipes sweat from his forehead and settles back into the lawn chair staring us down (or so it seems to me!) as we walk off.

As a good friend should, Joe immediately starts with, "Good job, his mother going to come home and find the family heirlooms all sold off, her son strung out in the living room..."
I tell him to shut up but we both continue to make up ridiculous scenarios about XXX DVD man and his mother, trying to assuage my guilt with a bit of humor.
We exchange stories of bargaining in Asia and how its rude not to haggle in certain cultures. We agree that we are both bad hagglers. Or at least we agree that I am.

We eat tacos with that extra $10 before rushing back to farm (I am going to hell), before I shove the two cases into my overstuffed bag (I have a ceramic hand from Brugge, a mug that says "Melk" from Cleo, a few bars of Belgian chocolate, and assorted Indian spices from the East Village already packed in my duffel among flea market clothes and heavy boots). We drive through the rolling hills of Alabama then I get on a plane flying far from XXX DVD man, his poor invalid mother, and their once illustrious but now broken family history encased in silver coated cutlery.

But damn it's going to look good on my dinner table.
And maybe he'll by his mom a new housedress and a pack of Reds.
See? Everyone wins.