I Laid an Egg at the Farmers Market

This season we have been regular and enthusiastic customers at a local Farmers Market. Not the kind that comes to your suburban town in some vacant lot one day a week. They're fine too, I suppose; but what's with the "boutique" pricing? No, I'm talking about the kind that I remember from my youth where my mother and father would shop on weekends. The kind with a dedicated central location with a permanent roof, open at the sides, with spots for the growers to back up their trucks loaded from which they sold their fruits and vegetables. I even remember tagging along with mom and dad and seeing kittens and the occasional puppy for sale. Think, Old School.

Occasionally on my weekly religious visit to the Paterson, New Jersey Farmers Market I would see something that was pretty big compared to what's usual. Radishes, for one. Beets. Recently arugula with leaves as big as my hand. More than a few times when I saw such over large items I would ask, "And where do you keep the really big ones?" (That's a joke, or an attempt at one, if you must be told.)

It must be that I'm an urban sort and not living the simpler rural life. Unfailingly my question would be met with either a blank stare or, "this is all we got." I knew I had laid an egg when the poker faced farmer lady said to me, "We only have big ones. I don't know what you're talking about." Evidently irony is not everyone's cup of tea.

With jokes, as in all of life, not everyone is your customer.