'Durrrrr,' he said pointing at himself. 'Does this face look like I sold anything???'
I took his money and shrank back. 'Sorry,' I mumbled apologetically.
It was the end of the first craft market of the year and sales had been low. I was collecting money from the stall holders to pay for the rental of the hall. Clearly one or two people were not happy. I could hardly blame them. Despite advertising in the local rag, wallpapering the area with posters and Facebooking the event to death, still no one came. A lot of the die-hard stall holders are very philosophical about this lack of foot fall and take the rough with the smooth, although since the recession bit, it has mostly been rough. But still, most enjoy themselves. Clearly this guy wasn't one of them.
'This was probably the most depressing day of my life,' he continued to bleat as I thanked him for his money and apologised for the lack of customers.
Of course, it didn't help that one stall holder had brought music to end your life with. Determined that we were not going to have a repeat of last market's 'Yellow Submarine' fiasco when it was played on a loop all day, nearly sending everyone mental, they decided to bring classical.
So while it was a lovely day outside. The sun shining. The sky blue. Inside the vast and somewhat chilly hall, we had to endure a depressing bout of Puccini blasting out the speakers. It was then I began to notice that some of the stall holders had started to look as if they'd lost the will to live. I began to mentally run through any jokes I had in my head in an effort to cheer them up. But the only one I could up with was: 'don't let depression ruin your life. That's what relationships are for' I didn't think it would help, particularly when one of the regular stall holders noticed that an ex-boyfriend of hers was sitting at a table across the room.
'Listen,' she whispered - well to be truthful she was actually giggling. 'For future reference. Anyone in this post code XXXXXX asking for a stall. Check them out with me first.'
'From this entire post code,' I boggled. 'Just how many guys have you dated?'
'Let's just say it was a few,' she replied, dryly.
Then the stall holder with a penchant for music to slash your wrists to suddenly had a change of heart, hot-footed it to the CD player and we were subjected to the William Tell overture on full blast (the Lone Ranger music for those that don't know.) I'm quite sure hearing it, any potential customers must have felt the overwhelming need to charge off into the sunset. I was having lunch at the time. Cranberry and Brie sandwich from the cafe. Before I knew where I was, I was chewing in time to the music and bit my tongue. I wouldn't have done that with Yellow Submarine!
And then I found a purse on my table. As an American lady had managed to collapse a clothing rail of mine when she was rifling through and sent out a distress signal as she went down with the contents of one of my wardrobes, we assumed it was hers. One of the lady stall holders grabbed the purse and went in hot pursuit. Five minutes later the American lady wandered back in and we said 're-united with your purse, then?' She looked at us like we were one table short of a craft market and told us she hadn't lost it. Meanwhile our lady was lapping the building looking for her. Turned out it just belonged to a fellow stall holder all along. Our lady stall holder returned eventually with the purse - and an empty coffee mug - it didn't take Sherlock Holmes to figure out she'd gone via the cafe in her hunt for the American. I then managed to knock the empty mug clean out of her hand and sent it crashing to the floor, echoing around the empty hall. It was probably the most exciting thing that happened all afternoon.
Anyway, I had a bit of good news when I got back home. An email from 'That's Life' Magazine asking for my husband's name and age.
'Oh, noooo. What have you got me into this time?' my husband worried.
He should be grateful. The last time I wrote a letter about him (Take a Break) he had his mug shot on the page right next to a photo of Tony Blair. Okay, okay so it was under the heading 'Aren't men daft.' But still -- famous or what?
This time I'd written to That's life. This is the letter:
My husband went to the hairdressers and while he was there the electricity went off. The hairdresser had to cut his hair in the dark and it was rather short, to say the least.
'What kind of hair cut is that?' I exclaimed when he came home.
'A power cut,' he replied dryly.
Boom! Boom!
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