What Not To Wear (to the Farmers Market)

What do Karl Marx, Winston Churchill, Frank Sinatra, James Bond, Groucho Marx and Orville Redenbacher have in common? What if I threw in Pee-Wee Herman? If I gave you Donald Duck and “The Cat in the Hat,” I would probably give it away.

Bill Nye (the Science Guy) does because “it’s practical” and he started doing it in high school when he served as a waiter for a school function. He said he also does it because, “It stays out of his soup.”

Yes, I’m talking about wearing bow ties.

I found an article from “Psychology Today” where the writer discussed what it means to wear a bow tie. The writer concluded that it basically was a signature, kind of like wearing argyle socks or cowboy boots.

It probably is a good conversation starter and honestly I have no problem with bow ties, other than tying them. They can be snappy for some occasions.

However, I have found myself being prejudiced against bow tie wearers recently. It is a difficult thing to admit, but I have been doing it.

Here is my situation…

On Saturday mornings, I love going to the Farmers Market where I live. It is a wonderful place to go get a cup of coffee, see a lot of dogs and study people. Our Farmers Market is a little on the high end side because our city attracts a lot of tourists and folks that want stuff on the high end side.

Folks will be tasting wine at 8:30 in the morning and comparing four or five types of kale. Don’t get me wrong – I like kale.

You can buy lamb and buffalo meat or turkey, goose and duck eggs. I love to cook, but I don’t think I’d know what to do with a goose egg. You can even buy gourmet popsicles. I have not had the urge to try Creamy Avocado, Tangerine Basil or Blackberry Ginger Lemonade frozen on a stick yet – but I might.

If I get the hankering, I can try all sorts of cheese, baked goods, seafood and soap, or have my knife sharpened. One lady sells organic earthworm castings. “Organic earthworm castings” are created when the worms digest rich organic material, then “pass it;” they say it is beneficial for plants. These folks call it what it is – “Worm Poop.”

So if you want to buy a bag of worm poop – you can.

My favorite thing at the Farmers Market is peanuts, specifically boiled peanuts. I’m from the South, we eat boiled peanuts. We talk about them, we eat them and we talk about them some more.

At our Farmers Market, there are two booths or places you can buy peanuts. One fellow wears a ball cap and sells all sorts of peanuts in plastic bags with labels his wife probably printed out on their home computer, the other fellow sells “gourmet peanuts” in fancy labeled cans. The fancy labeled cans fellow with the fancy named peanuts wears a bow tie.

I want to buy peanuts from someone who looks like a farmer. I’m pretty sure the ball cap he wears is from a “feed and seed” store or Farmers Co-op. There is no doubt in my mind that the fellow I buy boiled peanuts from knows how to drive a tractor and run a farm.

I realize it is not fair for me to judge the bow tie wearing fellow. He may very well know about farming and everything that goes with it. However, he dresses his peanuts and himself in “fancy cans.”

I want the boy who picks my daughter up to go to the prom to wear a bow tie, but I want to buy peanuts from a fellow who has dirt under his fingernails.

It’s just the way I am.

That bow tie fellow doesn’t even sell boiled peanuts…

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Cranks My Tractor

 

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I'm BN Heard and I like semicolons, dogs and farmers markets.

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Comments

[Judith Beck]

Who knew we could have a prejudice against bow ties. Laughing! We are amazing creatures in the things we can find to help us make decisions about something so innocuous as boiled peanuts! I love this as it shows just how strange we humans really are. Or, maybe it's just a southern thing. Laughing again.