My friend Mimi is back in France on a buying trip for her soon to be shop. We met on-line a few years ago. She has the brocante bug badly. Bad enough, that when she has vacation from her "real job" she comes to France to buy antiques.
Provence usually conjures up images of blue skies and a landscape that is saturated in famous light. But since Autumn it has been grey, raining, sometimes snowing, often cold and as of lately hailing. Though it hasn't stopped us from brocanting.
We went to a second hand store that had cleared out a two hundred year old
house. Paradise! Of course every other brocanteur in the land seemed to
know about it too. Nevertheless most everyone found something to take home.
Though I wish I had been Mr. Lucky Man who got the 18th century pair of glazed Anduze urns… AND two lovely garden benches! Three beauties in a heart beat. Instantly I was in love with him… I wanted to ask him if he wanted to marry me, since he bought so many lovely things…. but then I came to senses. The brocante bug can lead one to many crazy thoughts.
Mimi and her Mother had to rent a truck to take their things back to the warehouse.
Mr. Lucky Man had a truck too, I so wanted to steal his keys. Madame Pretty Face, another brocanteur at the Second hand Shop, swooped in before us buying the entire kitchen: I bet she doesn't even cook! I bet even though she is French she doesn't know what "herb de provence" is!
The Rat, (Yet another brocanteur who seems to be three steps ahead of me everywhere I go, as if she has a G.P.S. attached to my body!) as I call her, managed to sneak in before everyone with her beady eyes by batting them to the Second Hand Store Manager. She uses her femininity as a tool (I need that tool!!). She knows how to play her game. She sees the goldmine through a pinhole and knows how to get what she wants by those long eyelashes.
I swear God and I are having a talk, it will start with me asking him, "Why did you give me a double chin and a big nose?"
He'll probably say something along the lines like, "I gave you the brocante bug."
And I'll say, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, I've heard that line, it is like when my mother use to say, "But he is such a nice boy." In fact my brothers all four of them use to say, "When Mom says a girl is such a nice girl, it usually implies that she is not a looker."
So God??? What do you say about The Rat huh? She has long eyelashes and the brocante bug?"
Anyway…. I really am lucky, I am! I am not complaining. Gee look I have the brocante bug, a double chin, a big nose, people who love me in spite of it all, and the courage not to steal the keys of Mr. Lucky Man, the grace not to poke Rat's eyes out, and friendship with Mimi and her mother who let me ride in their truck with my purchase in one hand.
My singular purchase, from a shop that had an entire two hundred year old house available, in one hand. I am not complaining. But I am definitely buying fake eyelashes, and stealing keys the next time.
Leave a Reply