Farmers Markets

Today I want to condemn the highly corporate Silver Spring Farmers Market.  Because we should be honest with ourselves.  The Silver Spring Farmers Market sucks. So where do I go?  I go to the Kensington farmers market, because they don’t know how to use an apostrophe.

Kensington, MD is my family seat. My grandparents bought themselves a mansion on a hill there in 1932. You dialed White Hall four, oh-nine-three-two to get them. We were very posh about that and continued the tradition right up until area codes became a requirement in the 80’s.  I don’t know why that was a big deal, but the older folks seemed to sit down and masturbate furiously when you used words to represent the first two digits in the phone number.  Personally, my life goal, if I had lived back then, would have been to have a phone number that starts with “Fuck You.” Need me?  Just dial Fuck You two, seven-eight-three-nine.  Yeah.  That’s right.

My grandparents knew how to live.  The old house was full of collectable antiques. There was the Revolutionary War grandfather clock, of which the clockmaker only made three before whoever commissioned the building of the clock had him killed or whatever. The clock was worth so much that, on three different occasions when I was a kid, there were highly organized attempts to steal it.  Once the thieves were foiled by my pet beagle, Sammy (which my dad killed a month later), another time the cops got them as they were loading it into a truck parked on our road, and the third group of thieves almost made it.  They were trying to fence it at a warehouse somewhere in Northeast DC in 1980.  The clock received about $3000 of damage during that event and my father lovingly repaired it.

In 1994, my mom pawned the clock for $1500.

Then there was the original Currier and Ives panoramic painting of DC that my mom sold for an enormous amount of money and then proceeded to blow it all on drugs, booze, and who knows what.

Oh, that life was lovely while it lasted, though. But when my grandparents died in the 70’s and my dad took up residence in the family palace in 79, he kicked out all the help.  He was intensely paranoid, so he fired everyone. At home, the maids and cooks and butlers went, at the family business the secretaries and aides and accountants went.  His goal was to live in a big, empty nothingness where nobody could see what he was doing.  You’d visit him at work and find him all alone on the second floor, through rooms full of workstations that had all been abandoned the instant he took power.  It was much like what I imagine walking through a building in Prypiat must be like. Coffee mugs still half full, personal belongings covered in dust.  From 78-86, that was how the upper level of our headquarters store was kept.  Dark, abandoned as if during an apocalyptic catastrophe, and with my dad in the far back office sitting beneath a lamp plotting his escape from the world.

But, of course, none of that really registered when I was a kid. I lived the carefree life. Kensington was a wonderful little town. It was rural and a bit more exclusive back when my grandparents settled there, then quickly became the despicable yuppieville we all know and love today.  But there’s one thing going for it – money.  Real money.  Proper money. The kind of money that turns your stomach because it’s been stuffed in a mattress for decades and is covered in maggots and mold.

And that’s what makes for a good farmers market.

What I find with farmers markets is that it’s all about attitude.  Here I am, about to spend several hundred percent more than supermarket prices for simple shit.  Produce, fish, whatever. There’s no rational reason to go to a farmers market.  But you hit that one in Silver Spring, and they turn their nose up at you because there’s a dark truth lurking beneath the surface in this town – Silver Spring is still full of commoners.  People watch their budgets. They compare prices to Whole Foods.  They window shop. The bane of a farmers market.  The Silver Spring stall owners act like you owe them a hundred grand a year. Entitlement thought.

In Kensington, there are no questions.  The train station parking lot in “Old Towne Kensington,” along what used to be called “Antique Alley” is home to an exclusive market dealing to an equally exclusive microcosm of America.  The people who don’t look at the price list.  They show up with pedigree dogs and recycled bags and order whatever they want and pay with 50’s and 100’s. From the service side of the cash register, this demands a certain level of respect.  So you can go to Silver Spring and have people regard you with doubt and suspicion, or you can go to Kensington and deal with people who are so hungry for your infinite supply of crisp hundred dollar bills that they lick their lips in a way suggestive of the finest oral sex you have ever received.

Also, Kensington has Salt River Lobster, and that’s the best fish you’ll get in the DC area unless you pick up a rod and do it yourself.

Here’s the thing – all of my family’s money is gone. Like all rich people, we were able to watch out for ourselves. There was a period of disaster, but the truly wealthy retire in peace.  And so we have.  (When we’re not killing ourselves or falling prey to fundamentalists, that is.)  It’s a struggle for me and the other young ones.  That last reserve of money has been diluted through two generations of disaster and fucking idiots, and it’s not been helped by the fact that my generation (the children of the parents who fucked us in the ass) is just as broken and disgusting as said useless parents. Except for me.  I’m fine. And I don’t get shit because of that.  My cousins… Oh, man, they’re riding the light fantastic and draining the well.

Until everyone fucking dies.  Then my family will change.  Because I’m in the controlling position once everyone’s gone.  That’s how the old money does it.  Everything passes to the eldest to be doled out fair and square.

And it never fucking is, is it? That’s right. I’ll be living proof of that someday. Good luck finding me.

Wait, what was I saying? Oh yes, here’s the thing – even if the real money is gone, it’s all still there in our hearts.  We make do with the dribs and drabs. We continue on like some lonesome land rich family in the British countryside during some obscene civil war. A House of Usher with candles as our only light source, and fire fueled by furniture for heat. But we still expect the genteel ways.  We still expect to be treated a certain way, and to have certain things.  So when I go to a farmers market, I expect them to treat me like I have a pocket full of gold coins. I’m doing them a favor.  I don’t really care about the cause.  Fuck the Earth. I like mercury and pesticide.  I want to die young just so it’ll all be fucking over and I can finally get a good night’s sleep.  So I’ll go to Giant or Safeway and I’ll be very happy with what I get.

When I go to a farmers market, it is to seek quality, yes.  But the price of that quality needs to be balanced by the service, otherwise it’s not worth it.

So, this is Greatsociety’s endorsement of the Kensington farmers market.  I go every Saturday morning and I rub raw cod on my cock, then I cover it with herb-infused olive oil and I masturbate onto the finest produce you can imagine. Then I buy the best sausage I’ve ever had and I insert it into my anus.  Then I work my way back to Silver Spring and I eat and live well amongst the dirty commoners.

And, yes, I do have thousands of dollars hidden in bizarre places throughout my apartment. The obvious spot is the money mug, but then I have the emergency shoebox, and the emergency pigeon-hole, and the secret false-bottom toolbox, and the “special book”.

All in case the goddamned Union army comes again.  Fucking bloodthirsty Yankees. And don’t fucking laugh, because they will come again. Just you see. And probably while you’re being treated like shit on Ellsworth Avenue by embittered farmers.  You won’t even notice till the Yankee cannonballs rip through you.