Geoff and I haven’t been able to get to Brimfield for the last 3 years. We’ve both missed it a lot. But we were able to come this year. Some things have changed (new vendors, more food options, less parking, more 45 supporters) others have stayed the same (bargains if you know where to look, unpredictable weather, good and bad crazy, nice people).
Per usual I documented some of the odder things we encountered. Enjoy.
The photos below are from today.
When we got out to the parking lot this morning we saw these shoes. Apparently a naked person was raptured? A naked person with their shoes on the wrong feet?
Right after I took this pic a grown man hopped into the booth and flexed so his very patient wife could take his photo. The booth is not very big and I was fairly sure he’d get stuck. Somehow he didn’t.
As we walked up this child was playing with the mallet that is now on the ground. He seemed to be trying to shove it into the box with him. Before I could get a photo he decided that he couldn’t and just threw it on the ground. At the same time, his adult, who was in the tent behind him, answered a well meaning stranger who asked, “Does anyone belong to that child?” by saying, “Oh, yeah, there he is. He’s mine.” Mom was totally calm and completely unruffled. I would love to achieve that level of sangfroid some day.
Geoff pointed this out to me and immediately said, “Someone call the police!” Either you get the joke or you don’t.
This is a My Buddy doll. It was marketed in the late 80’s as a doll for boys. Because it was a doll for boys it is BIG. It did boy things like go for bike rides with you and get DIRTY! My brother had one and because we were macabre little kids bent on testing our parents at every turn, one day they came home to My Buddy hung around the neck from some some shoelaces and placed just so the top of his head cleared the ceiling in the living room. He was twisting slowly when my mom got home, his fixed happy blue eyed stare on his face.
We thought we were hilarious. I think my mother seriously considered giving us away and keeping My Buddy. It says something about our upbringing that neither of us knew how to tie a noose back then despite my brother’s time in Cub Scouts.
I took this picture because I am 12.
This is an inflatable dragon. It is larger than either of our dogs or both of them combined, and it is the only dragon anyone in Westeros should be allowed near. RIP Rhaegal.
This is where I tripped and fell and broke my first Brimfield item. Geoff was looking at books (front porch to the right of the entrance) and I was pulling our wagon up to the front porch where that shaving stand is (front porch to the left of the entrance). I didn’t realize that the gravel didn’t go all the way up so I tripped as I was parking the wagon, fell over backwards (with Dash strapped to my front,) and hit that shaving stand. I flipped myself around and tried to grab it before it hit the ground but I wasn’t in time. I did tear up my back and hip pretty nicely and break a nail along with the mirror on the stand. We gave the guy $50 to cover his loss on the item but I’m kinda pissed that the Brimfield Antiques Center didn’t have the edge of the porch painted yellow or highlighted or something to indicate that there was a lip there. I can’t be the only person who’s tripped over that and it’s patently unfriendly to people who need an accessible entrance. Or, you know, anyone really.
The juxtaposition of the bag and the statue was too good not to get on film.
At the end of the day, two very tired dogs. Dash generally puts himself between Thumbelina and the edge of the bed as we’re in an unfamiliar space and he wants to keep her safe. He may not be My Buddy, but he’s a good dog. They’re both good dogs, Brent.
~Kelly
