Am I Cheap?

r’s note: This started out to a Stream of Consciousness Sunday post but I needed more than five minutes.

I went to a craft yarn sale today. The lady running the sale is moving, worked at Jo-Ann’s for years, taught classes and professionally sewed and crocheted so that means she had a lot of stuff. Oodles of yarn and books and patterns and fabric. Bunches of it. Containers of it.

There were a few more containers and a table!

My goal was to get some hooks (I can’t seem to find any of my I or J hooks) and maybe some yarn cause fellow yarnies you know we yarnies can never have enough.

Hooks, needles, patterns… oh my!

So, as I was pawing through stuff I found the hooks I needed, er wanted but they were a dollar each. I saw some yarn I wanted but choose not to get, a book and some patterns. The Bee had asked me to get fabric but I just couldn’t deal with the piles on the table. I grabbed the hooks I wanted and talked to the seller about the price. A dollar a hook seems steep to me; they are gently used; no obvious scratches or visible nicks and such and they are the lighter aluminum types (I prefer ones that are heavier so that I won’t bend them while hooking) I asked if the prices were set. The lady running the show seemed reluctant but her friend was a bit more of a hard ass and declared that my offer of a 4.00 for nine hooks was an insult because everything was worth so much more. We settled on five, I wished her luck and was off but I had to wonder…Am I cheap?

For my money, the basic idea of the yard sale is to take unused, unwanted crap from your house and sell it to people. My experience has been that there are different types of flea markets:
Fabulous crap
Quality Crap
Crap Crap

Everybody thinks their stuff is Fabulous Crap but really most range from the low end of Quality Crap to Crap Crap. Having been a thrifht shop lover I have seen things that looked brand new, things that look like its been very well loved and things that have just been dogged and should be given away. The items at this sale were good but really, it was more like Quality Crap.

Perhaps I should learn to haggle better; I have issues of appearing ‘cheap’ or not as good as when I attempt to haggle. My mom would, does, haggle all of the time. Why pay twenty when you can get it for eighteen? Why not get an extra (fill in your own blank) thrown in? My worry that someone will catch me haggling and think I am cheap, poor, not good enough. My friend Mary says that I need to like saving my money more that I worry about how I feel but I do feel that someone is going to look at ME and see that ‘The Black Girl’ is not good enough.

Sigh!
Only I can turn getting hooks at a flea market into a crisis.
Anywho, I’m satisfied with what I got, don’t feel taken advantage of and can finish my hat (if the heat breaks cause it’s hot as bleep!). The sale goes on all day and if I were so inclined I am sure I could return. I’m going to make do with my stash and be happy.

What say you?
To haggle or not to?
-r