Excuse me sir, how much is that Free trunk?

Now you can buy almost anything at the Brimfield flea market. But how many things do you find that are actually free? Leave it to my daughters to find the needle in the haystack, or the steamer trunk in the field as the case may be. And what do those red boots have to do with this story?

It was Wednesday afternoon and Hillarie and I were shopping together and the girls were shopping together as well. It was late and we were getting ready to go to dinner. We called the girls to find out where they were. The reply I got was that they were moving the car. Now, there is simply not any reason to move the car and lose a primo parking spot until you are ready to leave for the day. Unless...unless. You find a rather large treasure. No danger of that. It's too expensive to buy a large item and have it shipped. We learned that fact last May, when we had to have a professionally framed piece of art removed from it's frame so that we could afford to bring it back to Texas.

The girls tell us to stay put and they will pick us up and then they park in a field and find a porter to load their treasure. This is their free treasure.... Cool, but huge and heavy. At this point Hillarie and I are not saying anything. It takes up the entire back of the rental SUV. The girls are very proud that they found a treasure and it was free. I remind them that we are nearly 2000 miles from home and its a bit too large for a carry on. They remind me that I would never pass up such a treasure for free back home in Texas. And they are right. They decide if they can't figure out how to get it home, they will bring it back to Brimfield by Saturday and give it to some other free trunk treasure hunter.

They try posting a message on the Brimfield antique message boards to see if someone might be heading back to Texas. All they found was someone looking to find a ride back to El Paso for their chihuahua. Really! I can't make this stuff up.

They consider sending it back via Grayhound. A good option, but it's 30 miles away, and there are weight limits. We borrow a scale from the neighbor and weigh it. It's 75lbs. They can ship up to 99lbs for 100.00 . This might work, we were going to mail things back via the post office anyway. Now we can send some things back in the trunk.

On Thursday afternoon, we are shopping when Dee and Hillarie are looking for Amanda and myself. There's a large moving truck with lots of large items waiting to be loaded into it sitting just outside. A young man notices that Dee is wearing her red boots. He remarks that the boots would be right at home in Texas. Dee tells him she is from Texas, and are they possibly a shipping company going back to Texas. Yes, they are, and they will bring the trunk back to Texas for 100.00, loaded with whatever we want to fill it with. (insert the sound of angels singing right here).

We brought the trunk to them on Saturday, completely filled with treasures and our wellies, so that we could have more space in our luggage. Naturally, we could have used our wells on Sunday, during the showers in Oak Bluffs.

These guys do this for every show, including Round Top in Texas as well as other big shows all year. Now we've got a connection, that could be a good thing, even if we might have to chop wood.(I'll explain that one in my next post).

Moral of the story, never give up, we actually saved money by not using the post office. And most importantly, when in doubt, pack your red boots.

One more post to come about Brimfield. After all, it's already July, and I'm still dreaming about all of the fun we had.

Smiles,

Carol