Mandy Newham-Cobb illustration
we accept bbq
I grow orchids. For many years, I traveled the East Coast hawking my plants at flower shows. Now that I’m older, I’ve slowed down. Being a show vendor is quite aerobic, what with the hauling, set-up, break-down, and all. When one’s Ben-Gay expenditures start to cut into one’s profits, it’s time to quit. When I was in the thick of it though, any show east of the Mississippi river was likely to see me in a vendor’s booth surrounded by pretty flowers for sale.
The best part of being a traveling flower show vendor was that I made lots of dear friends. I earned a decent amount of money. I saw pockets of the country I’d not visited before. But the best part of being a vendor was the mad bartering between vendors done at the shows held below the Mason-Dixon line. Perhaps the Yankees were just more discreet about their trading practices, but not the Southerners. If there was one phrase I heard at Southern shows, it was, “So, would you be interested in trading?”
As soon as one has one’s sales booth all assembled, stocked, and ready for business, one does a quick tour of everyone else’s goodies. Some people won’t trade until they’ve sold enough to cover their expenses, which is simply good business sense. Not me. I’ve never been one to let sound business practices stand in my way. I’m more of an instant gratification girl. If I want it at all, I want it now. I’ve learned that if I wait, it’ll be gone—sold out just like that. I’m a pretty seasoned consumer, so if I’m impressed by a product, it’s guaranteed to be popular.
Sometimes even the show organizers get in on the fun. There’s a show administrator in North Carolina that makes green tomato mincemeat cookies that are to die for. That’s right, the mincemeat is not made with beef and suet, but with green tomatoes. They are smack-your-mama good I tell you, and I’m usually not a cookie person.
This woman is a gifted baker, and it’s lucky that I’m only in her area a couple times a year. I could eat her bar cookies until I popped. She knows this. She plans for this. She brings pounds of cookies to the show to trade for orchids, and I happily let her ravage my sales table in exchange.
Trading is not all fun and games and scrumptious cookies, though. Sometimes trading makes for awkward moments. For example, when someone is intensely interested in trading but there is not one thing in their entire booth that one wants. Therein lies the problem. Does one hurt someone’s feelings by declining the offer or does one make the mercy trade? I recommend the mercy trade. When standing in a convention hall alongside this eager trader for the next four days, it’s best to get along.
I learned that the hard way. I declined to trade with a vendor once and then found myself trapped in a ladies’ room stall, waiting for her to leave. I knew it was her because she was regaling another girl about that “stuck up orchid chick” that wouldn’t trade for her sculpture. Really, sculpture is too generous a word. Cub Scout whittled critters is closer to the truth. I appreciate true folk art, but a chipped wooden skunk decorated with glitter is just not it.
That’s how I came to have a mercy shelf in my closet. On it sits evidence of the weird trades I’ve made. There’s a gargoyle rain spout, lawn ornaments painted Richard Petty blue, questionable tapestries, hand painted (pre-art class) ceramic tiles, country-cute refrigerator magnets, and sickly strong smelling soaps. I’m not saying these products don’t have any merit or charm—they’re just not for me. Okay, I am saying that the person painting those ceramic tiles should stop. Really. I mean it.
So we trade, we barter, we haggle with each other. It’s a Southern thing. I’ve traded orchids for a variety of riches with customers—a tray of Turkish pastries, rare vintage violets from a private collection, a ham, a dog leash, and my best score ever, five pounds of some of the finest pulled pork barbecue I have ever put in my mouth.
You know, I think I’ll add that to our company show banner.
“Accepts Visa, Mastercard, and barbecue.”