Choices

Last week I went to Bolivar to watch the granddaughters play softball, and then brought them back to Fort Scott on Friday. Their parents were coming over as soon as they got off work.

On the other side of El Dorado Springs there is a good-sized flea market, and their mother had indicated that every time they go by the place they have wanted to stop. Since we were in no hurry, this was a good time for grandpa to walk up and down the aisles with the girls. In places like this, there is such a thing as having too much to choose from. The three girls, ages 14, 11, and 5, were each given $5 and told to buy whatever they wanted. Meanwhile, I wandered around looking for some treasures to clutter up my place even more.

The two older ones found a library of used DVDs and picked out a movie of their choice in the first 10 minutes. Then it was back to the 5-year-old, who was having a hard time deciding what she wanted. They hit the mother lode when they came around the corner of one aisle and there were two shelves full of Beanie Babies. The next 20 minutes the conversation went something like this: "Well, do you like this?" "Do you want a penguin?"

The little one was in hog heaven because the two sisters were paying attention to her at the same time and trying to help her with a choice. My legs gave out, so I found square top trunk to sit on a couple of stalls away from the Beanie Baby treasures. Finally, the girls came up the aisle grinning, the Beanie Baby choice in hand, with the 5-year-old now trying to decide on a name for it.

We finished the flea market excursion off by buying some Bing cherries they had out front on display. We all crawled back into the pickup and headed to Fort Scott, and I was able to say, "Mission accomplished."