Today Ben and I went to a swap meet in Oakland. I’ve been to swap meets before, with their eclectic booths filled with half empty boxes of puppy pads, unidentifiable pieces of ancient technology, and gaudy, chunky jewelry that only a giant, 70 year old women would wear with any sort of sincerity. They are a fun, puzzling, sometimes fruitful, sometimes hilarious, and always interesting part of our culture. However, this particular place was an entirely new experience for me. You see, Ben had his bike stolen from in front of the library a few weeks ago, and a friend suggested that this would be a good place to look for it. He might as well have directed us to the Moss Eisley Cantina for how alien and vulnerable I felt upon arriving and seeing booth after booth of unquestionably stolen merchandise being unabashedly displayed at every turn by people whose lives I couldn’t possibly imagine. Men walked bikes down the aisles calling out “I’ve got a bike for sale here! Bike for sale!” One booth had an entire table covered in large, used, plasma screen T.V.s and another boasted a huge, mountainous landscape of expensive looking cellphones in conditions varying from new to barely recognizable. Many of the food carts did not have a single item for sale that I recognized. This surprised me because I love cultural foods, and I’m from the bay area, a giant, touristy place that’s always taken great pride in it’s multicultural heritage! It was scary; I was enchanted.
After searching table after table, truck after truck we finally decided that Ben’s bike was not at today’s market and decided to relocate to a place where we felt there was less risk of getting our pockets picked or our vital organs charred by under-the-table laser guns.
Still, I could not help but love our experience at the Oakland Swap Meet today, and I think Ben agreed. There’s nothing like a quick waltz with the sketchier side of society to renew your sense of excitement and adventure. Being able to do so in a large crowd on a bright, Sunday afternoon, rather than in a dark, smelly alley at 3:00am makes it all the better.
I don’t like that Swap Meets are often a favorite resource to thieves hoping to pawn stolen merchandise in a place where it can often not be traced to it’s original source. But still, I have to appreciate the invention of the Swap Meet. It has created a space for us to interact, to share our stories and our possessions, and to catch a momentary glimpse of our world through another’s eyes.
Thank you, Swap Meets, for adding color and interest to our culture.