“Do they have tins?” he asked.
Umm, no.
Kai still had his grandfather’s hobby on his mind even though we were home.
Mom remembered that there was a large flea market about a half hour away, and there was a chance that a couple of the vendors might sell some tins, so we decided to go there instead.
There were rows of vendors, selling every type of junk you can imagine.
We found one vendor who was selling two tin containers amidst his table of assorted other stuff.
Kai wanted both.
I asked the vendor how much he wanted for each tin.
“$5,” he said.
I ideally would have wanted to look around more. But the threat of rain seemed imminent and it didn’t look like there were many others selling tins.
We ended up agreeing on $8 for two. (I have a feeling that Papa would tell us that we overpaid, as I don’t think that these were old or unusual tins).
The man started to hand me the tins. I told him that they were for Kai.
“They’re for him?” he asked incredulously as he pointed at Kai.
I must have the only kid that ever wanted to buy a tin from this guy.
He joked that he would have charged more for me, but since they were for the boy, he gave me a good price.
Shortly after that, it started to rain lightly. It didn’t matter that we were barely getting wet, Kai has a fear of rain and he wanted to leave immediately.
As outings go, it was short and sweet. Which is not so bad for us.
And now we have another tin in our house to show Papa the next time he visits.
Perhaps Kai would like to peruse E-bay for tins...no rain :)
ReplyDeleteSeriously, if he got into collecting a particular item...with extensive foreknowledge...he could make a profit. I used to make money on the side buying and selling gold, precious gems and diamond jewelry. I learned all I could about them...and hunted for special deals through auctions and the like...and I sold them on E-bay, Yahoo, and Amazon. On most of my items...I only bought that which I knew I could get at least a 50% profit. On many items...I got 100% profit because I knew what to buy and at what price.
It could be a great hobby which would teach about business and money. I intend to teach my son a little later (he is too busy with school work right now).
One day I would definitely like to teach Kai about money and business, and using something of interest to him would be a great way to do it. I'm just a tad reluctant to do it now... not sure I want him to discover how easy it is to buy tins. He may drive us crazy asking us to get him more. ;)
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