The Great Avon Karma Goddess Strikes
I walked among the daisys and radishes and fresh fish of the farmer's market this morning. It frames the city hall property of the next town over, metal stalls with cloth umbrellas and tables piled high with tomatoes, corn, tamales, crepes, and olives. The vendors move their wares from town to town in the county, each morning setting up in one location, moving to greener pastures for the afternoon. The market visits my town on Wednesday afternoons, but I was in the throws of terminal Avon embarrasment syndrome yesterday.
I carried a rainbow tote bag to fill with produce and wore the heavy backpack with those darn brochures and samples of Planet Spa mud mask and Goddess fragrance. The annual June Gloom moved in this week, and the sky sits dark and moody all day, only smiling late in the afternoon when it's too late to care. I walked through the mist and haze and fondled cantelope and dandelion greens, filling my bag with cherries and corn and the last of the season's strawberries. And I handed brochures to anyone whose hand extended for fruit and vegetables, catching many by surprise. Most people were too polite to say No Thanks, and they shoved the brochure inside plastic bags filled with oranges or shrimp. I even snuck brochures into bags waiting on the ground while their owners opened purses and bagged their prey. A Tunisian man adding bananas and rum to a crusty French crepe caught my eye and he laughed and shook his head and cooked while I slipped a book into the open tote of his customer.
I handed out ten brochures, then twenty, thirty, forty, I was Stealth Avon Lady! Just nine remained, and I bought one of those Banana Rum crepes and sat on the grass near the fountain, watching a little boy with eyes like chocolate throw pennies into the water. It was good to rest. What would I purchase when I made a lot of money from these sales? I ate big bites of crepe with whipped cream and imagined taking a vacation to Baja Mexico and sailing in the warm water and sunning and drinking magaritas outside my own little blue villa on the water, a soft and cushy nanny to watch my brood and teach them Spanish.
"Well what do you know? It's the mysterious vanishing Avon Lady. Are you throwing more things at customers today?"
My crepe flipped into my lap and I looked up to see Mr. Kilt Question staring down at me, his eyes wrinkled with anger, but no, it was another joke, his lips turned up slightly at the edges, dimples about to burst forth, and I started laughing hysterically, couldn't stop, couldn't breath, just laughed and laughed as the rum and bananas ran over my shorts.
4:08:04 PM 
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