Miss Terry really likes swap meets and flea markets, and anytime we go to the Escapees Sumter Oaks campground in Bushnell, Florida we make it a point of going to the big Webster Flea Market. We can spend hours looking at all the goodies folks have for sale, from yard sale stuff to antiques, junk, and treasures.
When I heard about the big Daytona Flea & Farmers Market I knew we were going to have to see it. USA Weekend dubbed it one of the top five flea markets in the country, and their website boasts of 1,000 vendor booths. It’s open Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, so we decided to go check it out yesterday.
We were underwhelmed to say the least. Yes, the place is huge, building after building of vendors selling mostly cheap Chinese junk. Sure, there were a few interesting things, but very little of the swap meet variety merchandise we were looking for. But if you wanted cheap imported tools, handbags, knockoff watches, T-shirts, sunglasses, or back scratchers there were plenty to choose from.
The only thing that caught Terry’s attention was a vendor selling fresh produce.
They had several booths filled with every kind of veggie and fruit you could think of, and Terry found a few things to take home.
Does anybody besides me find it odd that we’re in Florida, which has oranges on its license plates and tens of thousands of acres of citrus groves, but they were selling oranges from California? What do they know that we don’t know?
In early June of last year while we were in Las Vegas, I bought Terry a very nice, very expensive gold chain necklace at Macy’s. We also paid extra for a warranty that covered repair or replacement from any kind of breakage or damage. A few months ago when we were in Arizona, it broke. We took it to the Macy’s at Superstition Springs Mall in Mesa and the friendly lady in the jewelry department was more than happy to exchange it. She also said that since it was a new necklace the warranty would be extended to cover it for a year.
Thursday night, the new necklace broke! Well that sucks. After we left the flea market, we stopped at the Macy’s in Daytona Beach, where the reception was quite different. The woman in the jewelry department was borderline rude to start with, and after looking at the necklace and our receipt, she told Terry it was out of warranty. We explained that no, not only was it still within the original one year extended warranty, it was a replacement and we only had it for about five months. She said she saw that from the receipt, but she refused to honor the warranty. She said she would send it to their repair department and see what they wanted to do, but that could take three weeks or so. Terry told her we would not be here in three weeks and she just shrugged her shoulders. I asked if we could just exchange it and she said no, we needed to take it back where we bought it. We bought it at Macy’s, a nationwide company with a supposed nationwide warranty!
No problem, there are lots of places that want my business, since Macy’s obviously doesn’t. We found a place called Terry’s Jewelry Repair & Design a short drive away, and the owner, who happens to be a Vietnam vet, said he could repair the necklace right there. It took him just a few minutes, and if I’m ever in this area and I’m looking for jewelry, I know where I’ll go.
When we were done there, we stopped at Florida Gun Exchange and looked at all of the goodies they had on display. There were a couple of handguns that caught my eye, but not enough to take them home with me. Then we visited a couple of antique shops, basically to see the kind of stuff we grew up with that is now considered collectible. I think I’ve reach the antique stage myself, so we left before somebody could hang a price tag on me.
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Thought For The Day – Do not let yesterday use up too much of today.
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Nick, substantially all of the Florida oranges go into orange juice. While you can eat them, they are a poor second class to the California oranges, or so the orange police say.
Now isn’t that interesting about the oranges. I never would have guessed!!
I’ve pretty much given up on antique stores. Most everything they have is what I still use on a daily basis!!
Jim your partly right about 90% of our oranges in the state of Florida are used as a citrus juice of some kind
They do have a small selection of grocery store type namely Red and pink grapefruit Honeybell Clemente
The easiest way to tell California and Arizona is there a bright shiny and clean
Arizona has a few Citrus packing houses that are owned by California companies that ship all over the country so even so it came from Arizona it’ll say California
Now Florida oranges as a rule are not pretty looking they look like they’ve been rubbed in the dirt for a couple weeks and as most customers purchase because it looks good
yeah if you buy Indian river Citrus on East Central Florida or a portion of Texas they’re hi end quality and color The majority of those go to gift boxes that people send out
But on a sidenote Florida oranges or grapefruit taste better because of the abundance of water That the fruit absorbs in opposed to California or Arizona
Which are more dryer in nature
Now when you go to a flea market or farmers market and you see Joe’s fruit and vegetable stand look at the boxes that the product came in 95%will not be from Florida ( or the state that your in ) but purchased from a wholesaler
You’re basically buying the same thing that the box stores buy from the same wholesaler
so another words if it’s bright and shiny it came in a cardboard box it’s from the West Coast it was dirty and ugly and comes in a 4 x 4 bin box it came from the sunshine State but it taste better
Have you had your sunshine grapefruit this morning
You are both much nicer people than I must be, to have been so able to walk away from the counter and sales person in Macy’s. I would have demanded to see her supervisor, the store manager or head of Customer Service, etc. Dammit … you paid for what you paid for, and there is only so much satisfaction in generating negative publicity by telling the truth of your situation and the poor handling by that employee. Then again … her life must pretty much suck, for her to have such a poor attitude and pass it on to you. Great Karma, finding the talented jewelry repairman!
I was a faithful Macy’s shopper for over 20 years, as were my two sisters. For mothers day a year ago we three and our brother went together to buy our mom an expensive diamond and ruby ring and paid for the warranty. Six weeks later my mom realized the diamond had disappeared. She was heartbroken but we were glad we had the warranty. Well we were until we took the ring back. The snotty woman at the counter asked where the diamond was and when we told her we did not know where or when it went missing she said without the diamond they could not reset it. I said what about the warranty and she said the warranty would cover resetting the original diamond, not a whole new ring. We argued with her and her supervisor, who hinted that maybe mom conveniently “lost” the diamond and was back for a new one. Needless to say, I’ll never step foot in a Macy’s again.
Tells you something about the low quality of the overpriced crap Macy’s sells if not one but two of their expensive necklaces broke in a matter of months.