The Marketplace

If you walked through the door of my house, I could easily count for you the number of pieces bought new on the first floor. The total is five. Everything else has come to me through the divine intervention of antique stores, thrift stores, estate sales, the curb, friends wanting to unload something, or Craigslist.

Though he would brag to others about my ability to pull things together in the house, my scavenging made Mark crazy. The minute I would tell him that I saw something on Craigslist that I thought we should look at, he’d get really excited and say something supportive like, “Oh for fuck’s sake.” I ignored his lack of enthusiasm, and for the most part tried to keep him out of the loop for the sake of staying married. One time I went to look at something an older man was selling and he asked if I wanted to take a look at the stuff in his garage so I did. Then he asked me if I wanted to see his vintage pieces in the basement and I did that too. When I told Mark he couldn’t believe I would do that. While not one of my brighter ideas, Craig Lister was at least thirty years older than me with a gimpy leg so I figured I had a better than average chance of outrunning him if he tried to kill me. But after that I kept my shopping within a five mile area thinking that the further from home I wandered the less chance my husband had of finding me in the kind of dumpster I shopped from.

Life in the secondhand lane was cheap and abundant until estate sales and thrift stores got wind of the profits that could be made from reselling. Prices went up, sales became competitive, the fun was being drained. Since I didn’t need anything I took a sabbatical until along came Facebook Marketplace and it was everything a girl like me needed. I was like a an old lady sipping on her rum and Coke, her oxygen tank parked behind her, and pulling the lever on a slot machine. I scrolled and scrolled and scrolled hoping to score and I did – an antique dining room table, a vintage wicker table, an iron table with a marble top, an old green, wicker planter. I was hooked and would brag about my finds like they were gold. Inevitably, some Nervous Nelly would ask if it was smart to go into a stranger’s house to buy something. Most of the transactions were done in a public space or bought sight unseen, money sent via Venmo, and picked up at your convenience, so, no, I was never scared off from buying something I didn’t need.

But I ran out of things to buy so I’d listen to friends tell me what they were looking for and I appointed myself as their personal shopper. Did they ask me for this service? No. Did they want someone else’s castoff? Probably not. Did it stop me? Duh. I’d peruse the Marketplace over and over every day. I’d screenshot sofas, drapes, plants, chairs. I sent my daughter a screenshot of a dresser for her baby boy’s room and the next day it was in his room. Sometimes I’d get feeback. It’s good but I don’t think that leather is decent. This from my interior designer son. So picky. Good thing I knew all about a good, used sofa. After a long time of being a picker and sending screenshots without my advice being heeded it occurred to me that maybe I wasn’t being helpful at all. Maybe people didn’t want secondhand crap and if they did maybe they were capable of shopping for it themselves. Like a mother sending her last off to college, I realized I was no longer needed on a daily basis.

It. Was. Gut. Wrenching.

I filled my time with stupid stuff like going to my job and working on my personal growth. I arranged the shoes in my closet in color order, organized my junk drawer, got a carousel for my makeup and separated the eye liners from the lip liners then spun it over and over out of boredom. I had lost my purpose. On a whim one day after work, a Tuesday when seniors get 30% and where they say to me, “You can’t possibly be a senior,” which I totally bought into until I heard the same thing said to someone pushing a walker, I went shopping. For what I do not know. Like Target, the thrift store tells you why you’re there when it’s below zero and snowing. And like the Road To Oz, I followed the yellow brick road to the back of the store where there was the sweetest old chair – high backed, apple green with olive edging, a pleated skirt around her. I died. The color, the detail. Then I looked at the price tag – $18.99 and I hefted that baby atop a cart, wheeled her to the front, and loaded her up.

I drove around with it a few days until I called my friend and said I had a present for her. We unloaded it from my car and took it inside her house. Her vacuum was out and she gave it a quick cleaning and we put it in place. “I love it,” she said and I dabbed my watery, proud eyes.

I was back and better than ever.