My husband sells crap at a flea market on Sundays. From the construction of this first sentence, you might think that he sells something other than crap on the rest of the days of the week. I assure you that this is not the case. He simply gathers crap from Monday to Saturday.
In spite of the crap, I love hearing his flea market stories, whether they’re about two vendors who got into a fistfight or about the woman who tried to bargain over an item that was priced at a quarter. If you spend even thirty minutes at a flea market, you can see the spectrum of humanity, from the still-drunk homeless guy to the semi-retired, about-to-get-drunk art history professor.
Just as most people look like stereotypes from afar, so did these two young guys. I listened as my husband described to me their worn dreadlocks, their fair trade hoodies, and the day-old smell of marijuana.
One of them picked up the Holy Toast off my husband’s table. It was priced at ten dollars, but he would have taken eight. Maybe.
“Dude!” Dreadlock Guy said to my husband as he examined a plastic picture of Virgin Mary that you could stamp into your toast every morning. “Dude,” he repeated. “There’s a word for this. It’s called pareidolia.”
My husband smiled, or at least I like to imagine he did. “What does that mean?” he asked.
“It’s a psychological term,” Dreadlock Guy answered, handing the holy toast to his sidekick. “It means finding patterns and faces in things, like in the shapes of clouds.”
“Yeah, Dude,” Sidekick said. “It’s a great word. It’s evolutionary. It, like, came from when we had to look for predators in the trees.”
My husband got Dreadlock Guy to spell it.
“Now I’ve got a word for you,” my husband said.
Sidekick put the Holy Toast back on the table.
“My wife’s an English teacher. She teaches Junior High students and adds this word to their vocabulary lists to wake them up. It’s called callipygian.”
Dreadlock Guy and Sidekick waited.
My husband continued. “It means having nicely shaped buttocks.”
“Whoa!”
“Dude!”
“Junior High boys would totally start listening if they learned that word.”
“Thanks, guys,” my husband said. “You made my day.”
“No, Dude. You totally made ours,” Dreadlock Boy said as they wandered away.
~
Have you misjudged anyone lately? Learned any new words?
Seen a callipygian? Experienced pareidolia?
Dude, that made my day. Eh.
Love it! There are some awesome words in the English language. I still have so many to learn!
Wonderful word. I had to go to the dictionary so i could pronounce it right.
Great story! No new words today. I’m still trying to gain control of the ones I know.
You had me at the opening line of this post, Leanne. The unabashed pride in your voice at your husband’s Sunday occupation rings loudly and clearly. 🙂 Great vocab lesson too!
Thanks, y’all. I love flea market stories.
This is a great story with a nice moral! I remind myself of that all the time…
Dude, like, that’s totally awesome! Also, I’ve clearly been missing out by not frequenting flea markets.
flea markets are awesome, its like going to a Zoo where humans are the exhibit!
Great story and I learned two new words. 🙂
Dude…. Nice post. =)
Ah Leanne, I LOVE laughing out loud! I know that’s a guarantee with your posts. At first I suspected your clever husband made up his word and definition (dude, why not?) so I did check it out. As a retired teacher, I congratulate you on knowing exactly how to keep your students engaged. Clever lady that you are!
You crack me up, Patricia. And you’re right. Making up a word is something my husband would do.
Never judge a book by its cover. You might be surprised at what you’ll discover if you bother to open the book. Loved the story.
Awesomesauce! — both in response to your story and as a new ‘word’ I learned recently. I use ‘word’ loosely here.
Jesus watches me shower. Not every day, but there is a tile in my bathroom that–every once in a while – if the sun hits it just right…he’s there. Checking out my callipygian. 🙂
You are brilliant, Renzay.
Just checking in to say Renee cracks me up! No. I’m not using that ‘crack’ word in a callipygian context.
Bwahaha.
Hi Gloria! Thank you. It’s love when people notice my crack. 😉
I could see myself standing there right next to your husband. I would be the one biting his tongue to keep from busting out laughing at the two “Dudes”. Great story. I had to tweet this one.
Thanks, Ray. 🙂
Duuuuude. 🙂 Hilarious toast toy, and such an excellently random conversation to have. I love it when people’s looks are deceiving!
That’s so great! And yes, I do that. Working in a drug store, I see so many different kinds of people, in good health/mood and very bad. I saw someone coming toward me and thought, “okay, here we go,” expecting the worst because of how he looked. And then I was so ashamed of myself when he turned out to be so kind, and worse, grateful for my help. I misjudged him, but also myself – I thought I was better than that.
So true.
Thanks for taking the time to comment.
“My husband sells crap at a flea market on Sundays.”
How does hubby feel about that opening sentence?
He laughed. No one could survive being married to me without a sense of humour. Plus, he proofs everything I post here. 🙂
I read it as “calligraphy” at first. It really changed the story.
Ha!
Callipygian. Instantly became the word of the week in our household.
It has a fun adjective cousin, too. CALLYPYGOUS (pronounced very differently: cal-li-pie-gus). Enjoy!