Dem Bones, Dem Bones

It’s been a crazy week, as Ken and I shifted all our stock from the antique market where we’ve been for a year to the one where I now work. I really liked the other place but after working at the new place for a month, I realized how much easier it would be if I didn’t have to drive quite so far and could have a booth in a place I was going to three days a week anyway. So we spent most of the week packing up, bringing stuff home, putting new price tags on everything and then taking it all to our new space. I haven’t had a lot of time for writing or even thinking about writing, so in honour of antiques, here’s a throwback…

One Saturday morning, Ken said to me, “Hey, let’s go to the Christie Antique Show.” I did what I always do and immediately said, “Yes! Let’s do that.” Then I did the next thing I always do and immediately had second thoughts and regrets, especially after looking on the website which said that there were free shuttle buses from the parking lot to the show site. All I could think of was the line-up to get into the parking lot, the line-up to get on the bus, and the obvious huge crowds of people that would be there. So I said, “Maybe let’s not go after all,” but Ken was insistent, even when I was all sad and whiny and like, “I don’t wanna go to the antique show. Don’t make me go to the antique show,” but he made me go anyway on the grounds that “it will be fun.”

Before we left…
Me: I’m taking my wristlet. I don’t want to lug a huge purse around with me.
Five minutes later…
Ken: I’m taking my camera.
Me: You always take your camera. Why are you telling me this?
Ken: Oh, I just thought we were announcing things to each other.
Atlas (from outside): I’m taking a dump in the back yard! This is fun!

In the car…
Ken: Why are you staring at me like that? Is there something wrong with the way I’m dressed?
Me: I wasn’t staring at you. I was looking past you out the window.
Ken: No, you were looking at me.
Me: How would you even know that?! I’m wearing dark sunglasses. Besides, you look fine. You’re wearing a black T-shirt and a black plaid shirt. You match. (*under breath*) Unlike when you wear your red plaid shirt and lime green T-shirt.
Ken: What?
Me: Nothing.

A moral dilemma…

Me: Did you see that video on Facebook about the job interview question?
Ken: The one where you’re driving in a lightning storm and you see three people at the side of the road?
Me: Right—“You see your best friend who once saved your life, a beautiful woman, and a sick elderly lady standing by the side of the road in a lightning storm, and you only have one seat. Who do you take?” It was easy. I solved it right away.
Ken: What do you mean, “you solved it”? Did you watch the video to the end?
Me: I didn’t need to watch it to the end. The old lady sits on my lap in the driver’s seat, my best friend sits in the other seat, and the beautiful woman sits on HIS lap.
Ken: You’re not allowed to do that. You only have one extra seat.
Me: I can do whatever the f*ck I want. It’s MY ethics. I’m the Kobayashi Maru.
Ken: No, you’re Kirk. But it doesn’t matter. That’s not the right answer. Why don’t you EVER watch videos to the end? The CORRECT answer is: You give your keys to your best friend because you trust him to take the old woman to the hospital and then come back for you.  This leaves you alone with the beautiful woman. Then he comes back and—
Me: This is starting to sound suspiciously like that logic problem where you have a rowboat and you have to take a bunch of animals across a river. It’s a MORAL DILEMMA, not a logic problem, Ken. Also, why do I want to be alone with the woman?
Ken: So you can hit it off with her.
Me: A) She’s not my type and B) That’s why my solution is more ethical. I put the woman on my best friend’s lap so that HE could hit it off with her. I’m self-sacrificial as f*ck. There. I win. ALL THE MORALS ARE MINE.
Ken: Sigh.

Then we got to the antique show, and it wasn’t as bad as I thought. We had no problem getting parked, got a bus right away, and made it into the showgrounds less than 5 minutes after arriving. But then we realized that there were 100s of dealers and we needed a system, which was basically to wander down one row and back up another, saying, “Have we been down this aisle before? Oh yeah, I remember the giant elephant statue.” We have a friend who had a booth, and we finally found him. He said he was having a pretty good day, selling quite a bit and whatnot, when Ken pointed to a large box of bones at the front of his tent. They were priced at $5 each. When we asked about it, he said that last month, a guy came into his store with this big box of bones, wondering if he’d buy them. He was skeptical at first, but they sold like hotcakes (if hotcakes were all dirty and decomposed). So when the guy came back with another box, he bought that too, and brought them to sell at the show.

Friend: People are going nuts for them. I’ve already sold most of them. Quite a few people have been teachers, you know—want to use them in their classrooms.
Ken: What kind of bones are they?
Friend: Cow bones. I think.
Me: Cow bones?
Friend: Probably.

I don’t know if I want my child in a classroom where the teacher is like, “Hey kids, check this out! It LOOKS like a human femur, but the guy told me it’s probably just a cow bone.” And the weirdest thing was, he wasn’t the ONLY dealer selling bones. There were so many of them that we lost count. There were skulls, antlers, jaw bones, full skeletons of small rodents, you name it. We walked past a booth where a guy was showing a woman a skull that was on top of a log with a branch going through the skull’s eye socket. He was actually saying this: “Sometimes when animals die in the forest, they do it on top of logs and such, and then they go into rigor mortis there. So I’ve arranged the skull and log like this—kind of like a nature scene.”

And while this may seem like a one-off, at the antique market where I currently work, there’s a dealer who has glass vials full of chicken bones, and they also sell like crazy. Go figure. I guess I should have kept this year’s Christmas turkey carcass–I could have made a fortune. Happy New Year!

47 thoughts on “Dem Bones, Dem Bones”

  3. Seriously Suzanne, your conversations with Ken should be a script for a sitcom! It’s reminiscent of SCTV or The Kids On The Hall, which was way better than SNL. You guys are hilarious and the thing is that it comes so natural to you guys. You crack me up. And what’s with boxes of bones? Like this person could have gone to cemetery at night and just dig up some shit and sold them at the antique show, creepy.

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  5. Great way for a mass murderer to get rid of a body – just sell the bones! Yikes how creepy is that? I’m day two in my new apt so I can relate on the moving bit—🤯😩😒🤓

    Sent from my iPhone

    >

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    • They’re on instagram at oneofakindantiquesmall. They post regularly 😊 I’ve just started an instagram for my booth called prufrockandcompany but I haven’t posted much yet.

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  9. Did I spy Fiesta Ware stacking bowls?? Your shop looks so beautifully put-together–that’s got to feel so good to have reset. I started following your Instagram page (not stalk-y at all, no. . .), but I could use some pretty imagery vs. the mess I call “home.” All the best to you in this and each of your ventures in ’22, Suzanne!

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  10. Gabi Coatsworth says:

    Inexplicable but hilarious. I’m mentally replacing “He’s from Barcelona” with “She’s Canadian,” to explain some of your blog posts… 🙂

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  12. You and Ken must entertain each other no end. Love the conversation. Weren’t you worried about all the infected people breathing on you? I can’t wait to go back to fairs and shows – not yet though. And odd about the bones…hmmm. People are weird. 😀 Happy New Year!

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  13. You know, there’s a YA novel by William Sleator called Singularity that starts with some kids going into their deceased uncle’s house and finding a bunch of bizarre animal skeletons that turn out to be the bones of animals FROM ANOTHER UNIVERSE. Or maybe you don’t know but it sounds like your kind of book. Anyway I now wonder why the uncle didn’t sell those skeletons at the flea market. Imagine how hotcakes from another universe would sell.
    Also I like your answer to the logic puzzle best. I’d get hung up on questions like, am I still married in this scenario? And if I’m not what if the beautiful woman doesn’t like me? She gets an equal say in this too, after all, and anyway I’m not sure she’s going to be that impressed with me since I just handed the keys over to someone else and staying behind just to be with her seems like a really creepy move.

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  14. Had no idea there was such a market for bones. Next time I’m at a market and I see someone selling bones, I’ll give them a Thumbs Up.

    I LOVE that you used the Kobayashi Maru. I refer to it frequently, but only my husband gets it. So disappointing.

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