an excerpt from my book, The Gay Road Less Traveled, available for $3.99 on Amazon’s Kindle

“Red Letter Day – Pet Shop Boys”
 
I had to seriously consider whether I wanted to post this adventure or not, but I’m already broke, jobless and soon to be homeless…screw it, ain’t no shame in my game.
Setting: The Swap Shop on Sunrise Blvd., the largest flea market in the U.S.
At this flea market, when different vendors start getting ready to leave they will start calling out “$1, everything left $1″ then “50 cents, everything 50 cents” then finally “Free, everything left free.”
Now I’m not trying to justify my actions or make excuses, but I have always shopped at thrift stores and I’m kinda thrifty myself and I have both Irish and Gypsy roots…just sayin.’
When the first vendor made his Free! Announcement, a large group of old Haitian and Jamaican women rushed in and started grabbing everything up. As did I. I jumped right in there, bumped a 70 year-old out of the way and commenced grabbing treasure: to improve my quality of life, ok? I only have me to watch out for me, ok?
This all happened at around 4 p.m. I grabbed a big cardboard box and when the next vendor closed down I was ready, snatching and grabbing and throwing whatever caught my eye in it. I had to watch my box closely though, because the women thought my stuff was the free stuff from the booths and keep trying to peruse my treasure: is John going to have to choke a bitch? Or more likely get choked out. I am sure I looked a little Gollum-ish yelling “Mine, that’s mine” My treasure, my precious.