The Swap Meet

About once a month, one of the beach communities in Mexico holds a swap meet.

Notification about the swap meet is posted on bulletin boards around the area and the word gets out. There is no charge, just load your truck or trailer with all the stuff you don’t need and haul it to the designated place on the beach.

The notice read 9 a.m. for the start of the swap meet, however we arrived at 8:30 a.m. and the place was packed. Our contribution to the sale was one double pane designer window, a 50 horse outboard motor and a half dozen sacks of tile cement and stucco.

We backed up our pickup in line with the others which stretched a quarter mile down the beach. Then as soon as we got everything priced, we headed out to see what kind of bargains we couldn’t do without.

Our first buy was a set of swim fins. The owner said he wanted two bucks. We looked them over, not bad for the price, but the heel straps were rotting. “Make it a dollar” the seller added and the deal was struck.

Then we found a wood towel rack and toilet paper holder. Just what we needed for the upstairs bathroom that didn’t work. Five bucks each seemed like a bargain. With some sanding and a new coat of varnish, they would be like new.

We had to run back to our truck because there was someone eyeing the motor. “She’s a beaut,” we said, “Just paid $150 to have her repaired. Runs like new.” 

“Well why are you selling it?” Came the question back.

“We have another motor that is still good,” was our reply. Then another interested party came up and looked at the window. They thought it was being sold for 150 pesos instead of dollars. That would be $15 and the window was worth ten times that much. No sale.

Things were not going good. By the end of the first hour we had purchased three items and sold none. We had a bunch of lookers but no one even wanted to haggle. How boring!

Other people were haggling down the line. We felt left out. We really wanted to haggle, selling something was secondary.

So the people passed by and we tried to catch an eye. Then people who had other stuff started coming by and asking if we were interested in an inflatable dingy. “No we already got one and it leaks too.”

There was one seller who had an edge on the market. He had unloaded enough equipment to set up a hardware store. Big saws, drills, tools, you name it he had it. He was getting all the customers and we were getting jealous.

Then an old friend came by just to jaw a bit. “Sell anything he asked?” “Nope” I replied.

“Too bad you didn’t bring a cribbage board, we could play cribbage”, I added.

“Well I saw a cribbage board for sale in one of the booths,” he replied.

Then off he went and was back in about three minutes with a cribbage board in hand. It was about the size of a deck of cards. In fact, the board was set up with a pack of cards underneath. Only two bucks.

“I’ll buy it,” I said before thinking.

At least if we didn’t sell anything our time wasn’t wasted.

So for the rest of the morning we played cribbage and if someone came by to look at the motor or window, no problem, we would haggle a little bit and then go right back to cribbage.

These swap meets are great!