{"id":1408,"date":"2010-08-19T09:03:14","date_gmt":"2010-08-19T14:03:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.greatsociety.org\/?p=1408"},"modified":"2018-10-30T16:58:14","modified_gmt":"2018-10-30T20:58:14","slug":"farmers-markets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/?p=1408","title":{"rendered":"Farmers Markets"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today I want to condemn the highly corporate Silver Spring Farmers Market.\u00a0 Because we should be honest with ourselves.\u00a0 The Silver Spring Farmers Market sucks. So where do I go?\u00a0 I go to the Kensington farmers market<\/a>, because they don’t know how to use an apostrophe.<\/p>\n


\nKensington, 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\u2019s.\u00a0 I don\u2019t 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.\u00a0 Personally, my life goal, if I had lived back then, would have been to have a phone number that starts with \u201cFuck You.\u201d Need me?\u00a0 Just dial Fuck You two, seven-eight-three-nine.\u00a0 Yeah.\u00a0 That\u2019s right.<\/p>\n

My grandparents knew how to live.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 They were trying to fence it at a warehouse somewhere in Northeast DC in 1980.\u00a0 The clock received about $3000 of damage during that event and my father lovingly repaired it.<\/p>\n

In 1994, my mom pawned the clock for $1500.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Oh, that life was lovely while it lasted, though. But when my grandparents died in the 70\u2019s and my dad took up residence in the family palace in 79, he kicked out all the help.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 His goal was to live in a big, empty nothingness where nobody could see what he was doing.\u00a0 You\u2019d 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 From 78-86, that was how the upper level of our headquarters store was kept.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 But there\u2019s one thing going for it \u2013 money.\u00a0 Real money.\u00a0 Proper money. The kind of money that turns your stomach because it\u2019s been stuffed in a mattress for decades and is covered in maggots and mold.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s what makes for a good farmers market.<\/p>\n

What I find with farmers markets is that it\u2019s all about attitude.\u00a0 Here I am, about to spend several hundred percent more than supermarket prices for simple shit.\u00a0 Produce, fish, whatever. There\u2019s no rational reason to go to a farmers market.\u00a0 But you hit that one in Silver Spring, and they turn their nose up at you because there\u2019s a dark truth lurking beneath the surface in this town \u2013 Silver Spring is still full of commoners.\u00a0 People watch their budgets. They compare prices to Whole Foods.\u00a0 They window shop. The bane of a farmers market.\u00a0 The Silver Spring stall owners act like you owe them a hundred grand a year. Entitlement thought.<\/p>\n

In Kensington, there are no questions.\u00a0 The train station parking lot in \u201cOld Towne Kensington,\u201d along what used to be called \u201cAntique Alley\u201d is home to an exclusive market dealing to an equally exclusive microcosm of America.\u00a0 The people who don\u2019t look at the price list.\u00a0 They show up with pedigree dogs and recycled bags and order whatever they want and pay with 50\u2019s and 100\u2019s. From the service side of the cash register, this demands a certain level of respect.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

Also, Kensington has Salt River Lobster<\/a>, and that\u2019s the best fish you\u2019ll get in the DC area unless you pick up a rod and do it yourself.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the thing \u2013 all of my family\u2019s 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.\u00a0 And so we have.\u00a0 (When we\u2019re not killing ourselves or falling prey to fundamentalists, that is.)\u00a0 It\u2019s a struggle for me and the other young ones.\u00a0 That last reserve of money has been diluted through two generations of disaster and fucking idiots, and it\u2019s 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.\u00a0 I\u2019m fine. And I don\u2019t get shit because of that.\u00a0 My cousins\u2026 Oh, man, they\u2019re riding the light fantastic and draining the well.<\/p>\n

Until everyone fucking dies.\u00a0 Then my family will change.\u00a0 Because I\u2019m in the controlling position once everyone\u2019s gone.\u00a0 That\u2019s how the old money does it.\u00a0 Everything passes to the eldest to be doled out fair and square.<\/p>\n

And it never fucking is, is it? That\u2019s right. I\u2019ll be living proof of that someday. Good luck finding me.<\/p>\n

Wait, what was I saying? Oh yes, here\u2019s the thing \u2013 even if the real money is gone, it\u2019s all still there in our hearts.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 We still expect to be treated a certain way, and to have certain things.\u00a0 So when I go to a farmers market, I expect them to treat me like I have a pocket full of gold coins. I\u2019m doing them a favor.\u00a0 I don\u2019t really care about the cause.\u00a0 Fuck the Earth. I like mercury and pesticide.\u00a0 I want to die young just so it\u2019ll all be fucking over and I can finally get a good night\u2019s sleep.\u00a0 So I\u2019ll go to Giant or Safeway and I\u2019ll be very happy with what I get.<\/p>\n

When I go to a farmers market, it is to seek quality, yes.\u00a0 But the price of that quality needs to be balanced by the service, otherwise it\u2019s not worth it.<\/p>\n

So, this is Greatsociety\u2019s endorsement of the Kensington farmers market.\u00a0 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\u2019ve ever had and I insert it into my anus.\u00a0 Then I work my way back to Silver Spring and I eat and live well amongst the dirty commoners.<\/p>\n

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 \u201cspecial book\u201d.<\/p>\n

All in case the goddamned Union army comes again.\u00a0 Fucking bloodthirsty Yankees. And don\u2019t fucking laugh, because they will come again. Just you see. And probably while you\u2019re being treated like shit on Ellsworth Avenue by embittered farmers.\u00a0 You won\u2019t even notice till the Yankee cannonballs rip through you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today I want to condemn the highly corporate Silver Spring Farmers Market.\u00a0 Because we should be honest with ourselves.\u00a0 The Silver Spring Farmers Market sucks. So where do I go?\u00a0 I go to the Kensington farmers market, because they don’t …<\/p>\n

Farmers Markets<\/span> Read More »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52,5],"tags":[125,203,124,73],"class_list":["post-1408","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-meanwhile-in-silver-spring","category-rants","tag-childhood","tag-kensington","tag-nachos-family","tag-silver-spring"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1408","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1408"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1408\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1409,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1408\/revisions\/1409"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}