troubleshooter RIP

I had big plans for last weekend, oh boy! Instead it was a drama of tragic proportions, because the Troubleshooter Swap Meet was canceled—possibly forever!(Cue the horns and tympani: dun-dun-DUNNNN!!!)

For the past fifteen years, my dear dad and I have looked forward to the first Sunday in May and the first Sunday in October because those are the days on which the Troubleshooter Swap Meet was held. Over the years, various other beloved friends and family members have accompanied us, but Dad and I are the hardcore cases. We’d get up super early and pay extra to get in when the antique dealers got in, to start pawing through the treasures before they let the general admission riff-raff in at 9am.

Then we’d hightail it to Felix Continental, the Cuban sidewalk cafe in Orange for plantain omelets with green salsa and chewy deep-fried nuggets of pork (could breakfast get any better?), and regale each other with tales of our intrepid bargain hunting and lurid descriptions of the weirdest items we saw. For years my friend Maria had her eye on a poorly taxidermied coyote in a fancy display case and I pined over Suzette the (broken) Fragrance Poodle atomizer that showed up for three or four Troubleshooters in a row—but come on, $28 for a non-functioning perfume dispenser? Even if it IS shaped like a poodle named Suzette? Sorry, but a girl has to have some standards.

Dad and I made up elaborate stories about unfortunate paintings we saw at the Troubleshooter, like the one that was probably supposed to depict a cozy winter scene but to us it looked like the isolated log cabin was engulfed in flames, oh the horror! And there was a painting of a cow with its head poked through a fence, grazing, happily oblivious to the fact that she’d been grazing so long there was no earthly way her fat head would fit back through the fence and she’d be trapped there forever grazing the same barren patch of land, bwahahahahahaaaa!!!

I can’t begin to list the wonderful and amazing “art supplies” I found at the Troubleshooter over the years. My best score? A baggie containing seven complete pairs of very old dentures for only 50 cents a pair. I know!! You envy me. It’s not your most attractive trait, but I understand. I still haven’t figured out how to get the pink plastic gums to relinquish their pearly whites without damage but when I do they’re going to look spectacular in an assemblage, and in the meantime they are certainly a conversation starter.

Last time I went home with two whole rolls of gorgeous old geometric wallpaper ($20!), three dozen of those pleated aluminum stars that added sparkle to yesterday’s Christmas trees, red plastic 2” tall marquee letters (several alphabets worth!), and some sparkly (!) resin autumn leaves that were supposed to go into the Autumn ARTitude Art Challenge winners’ collage packs, but I totally forgot until just now. D’oh!!

The point is, the Troubleshooter has been not only my best and favorite source of weird-ass creative materials but also a family tradition to rival the most Norman Rockwell Thanksgiving. We shall miss it.

Comments

[Jenn]

so sorry to hear about the Troubleshooter! No wonder you sounded down in the dumps the other day.