The Flea-Market Finds Expertease

Clare, you are an expert in flea market finds, and so I thought we could probe your area. Pardon? Of expertise. Spelled wrong? Naturally. You're listening to Expertise, spelled wrong, the podcast where the world's most expert experts discuss their areas of expertise expertly. Expert comedy writer Clare Sera and expert comedy writer Danno Sullivan bring their expertise to other unrelated expertises. Hey there, listeners around the world. This is your host, Danno Sullivan. Welcome to the podcast, Expert-i-e-s. I'm excited and delighted to be talking with bargain hunter extraordinaire.

You know what? Even that word was a bargain because the full length word is extraordinary, but I bargained her down. Bargain hunter extraordinaire, Clare Sera. Welcome to the program. You really captured the essence of flea market trekking, as we call it, or bargain basement bartering. Clare, I know you got off into the world of flea market finds by starting off just as a poor person. This was not something you wanted to do, but had to do. Is that correct? Like so many of the greats, Danno, wasn't John Glenn hurled into space before he became an astronaut? That's right.

LeBron James had a basketball thrown at his head as a child. He had zero interest before that. After that, you couldn't stop the baby from dribbling. And I, myself, grew up in a shantytown on the other side of the tracks of a shantytown. Oh, gosh. So wait, wait, wait. So there's the town. Yes. There's the shantytown. Yes. And then there's the other side of the tracks from the shantytown. That's correct. Is that the boondocks, Clare? I lived down past the boondocks. Oh, even beyond the boondocks. Yeah, it was just my stepmother and myself. So you were living with your natural stepmother.

I remember reading this, which I found curious. You're one of the few humans to have been born to a stepmother. Yeah, it's partly what got us shunned from normal society. But even that is a form of bargain hunting, wouldn't you say? You just cut out the middleman. Instead of having to have a father and a second marriage, you went straight to the stepmother. So my mother pioneered a rather controversial form of bargain hunting. It was also known as breaking and entering to some sticklers. It's a fine line, I understand that. Yeah. So that would probably explain how you and your stepmother were separated at such an early age for you.

She went to prison, which, you know what? God help her, it's the ultimate form of bargain living. Yes. Depending on a given month, when you're a prisoner. Exactly, just a little bit of your soul every day. Yeah. For our listeners around the globe, looking for the best bargains on just day-to-day things, groceries and the necessities of life, do you have any red hot tips that you can share? Oh, Dana, there are always bargains to be found. As we say, it's BBB, bargains in the back. So just use that as a guide whenever you are at a street market or a fancy department store, go to the back of the store, go to the basement.

Bargains in the back or the basement. BBB. Yeah, and you will find sometimes folks will move a piece of merchandise from one department of a store and then leave it willy-nilly, you know, like you've got a little girl's dress that's now in the mattress department. If you kick up a stink about that, you can get a manager to come. A manager on the floor, manager on the floor, please. Those words are golden to a bargain hunter. Manager on the floor. So once you get the manager on the floor, what is it that you're trying to achieve there? Are you trying to get a discount on the little girl's dress?

Are you trying to get a discount on the mattress? Well, see, that's where experience comes in, Dana, because you've got to read the moment. You've got to read the situation. Am I going to get this on the dress or am I going to get this on the mattress? So, but just by getting a manager involved, you know that something's got to give. And you know what's going to give? The price on one of those two items. You're going to be going home that day with a little pink frilly dress or a new foam pillow-topped mattress. We've had this whole conversation about bargain finding, and we haven't even mentioned haggling.

Do you have to be a master haggler? Dana, it sure doesn't hurt. So for people that are not in the know, to haggle someone is to show up at an establishment where they have goods for sale dressed as a hag. Sea hag usually is, I have found, the most effective. Full on. I used to do like a rough, tough, jolly sea captain. And that's not quite the same as a hag, but it's more masculine, which is befitting for someone like me. Absolutely. And did you have much luck with that? Oh my gosh. I got such a good bargain on a sword and a peg leg. How's sea haggling going for you?

It couldn't be better. There are times, and I wouldn't recommend this for an amateur, but there are times when I have gone as a full-on sea hag slash fish wife, just like to bring a few salted fish hanging off the ropes down the back of my neck, and gone to the back of the basement of, say, a Nordstrom's. So hang on, you're combining strategies here. This is really advanced maneuvering. And this is, you know, this is exclusive. So this is BBB plus sea hag. That's right. All right, keep going, keep going. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you get to the back of that store and you look, and you know, it's gotta be organic.

I am not someone who says I'm going to bring a toaster from the home goods department and put it on a pet puppy from the pet department. Oh, for that combination effect. Yeah. Manager on the floor. Manager on, but if it organically has happened, and you're dressed as a sea hag. So there you are in the department store. Yeah. There's been a horrible merchandise mix-up. Yes. You're dressed as a sea hag. I imagine at some point a crowd will begin to form, and there is strength in numbers. Am I not right? Oh yeah, and. If you can somehow stir up the crowd. Yes. You know, support the sea hag, support the sea hag.

I am just a lonely sea hag. I was just looking for a toaster oven. And people are, at that point, I know how I would feel. Yeah. Sell her the toaster, sell her the toaster. Well, this one was a little bit unusual. It was a Christmas display. And you've been kind enough not to mention that my house is fully decorated and full on Christmas. Sure. Everything. But this was out of rooms to go. And so I got the room. As part of the bargain. Yes, that is what I got. Because there was a toaster oven on a couch. And you were able to actually walk away with the entire room.

Yeah, to go. That's incredible. Now, was it the room that you were in? Because I could see how that would be tricky getting it home. It was the room I was in. And thank God for the people that came to the aid of the sea hag that day. The room was on a rug. And so they just started pulling the rug. And they just inched it, edging, inching, all the way to the front door. And chanting the whole time. That gives me such a good feeling about the public in our country today. That so many people would be willing to pitch in together, to pull a sea hag in her room out of the department store, back to her own Christmas home.

Yes. And for what? What did they want in return? I mean, everyone's searching for a bargain. Was that charity? Or was that, did they gain something as well? Well, I think they gained two things that day, Daniel. They certainly gained my gratitude. And they also got the smell of the stinking fish that was around my neck out of the place where they wanted to do their own shopping for some rooms to go. That's a good point. I think a lot of times, if you can just be a disgusting presence in an establishment, a lot of times they'll give you stuff just for you to leave.

That's right. And there's a fine line. If you're too disgusting, you can't get in. You gotta know just how disgusting to be. That's the best bargain we could have hoped for. And I think for our listeners, getting a tip like that for free is the biggest bargain of the day. The Expertise Spelldron podcast is free. And like the Amish, all are welcome. Be sure to sign up for our email announcements at funnypodcast.com. And follow us in your favorite podcast app, like the Expert Podcast Listener we know you are. You mentioned something that I'm sort of spellbound by.

Apparently you were shopping in a department store that had both toasters and pets. Oh yes, that was Harrods. So do they have a full supply of pets? They do. They have household pets, exotic pets, and in their basement, illegal pets, which I have used to great gain. Yeah, I would think so. If you could bring a gala monster and somehow get it into white goods, manager on the floor. Manager on the floor.