I thought the man was coming to kill me. He had a long sword in one hand, a mace in the other and about 10 other implements of pain and destruction in a grungy bag slung over his shoulder.

Weird, right?

I started thinking about how my obituary would read: “Rakishly handsome Sun Journal reporter Mike LaFlamme died Saturday after he was stabbed, clubbed, cleaved and sort of pinking-sheared to death while he stood helpless with his mouth open while holding a Dukes of Hazzard lunchbox in Brunswick, Maine.”

It’s true. My mouth WAS open. And it’s true that I was clapping eyes on a boss lunch box when my end came, although I’m not completely sure it was a Dukes of Hazzard model. Might have been a Scooby-Doo.

But the man with the terrifying bag o’ weaponry wasn’t coming to put me down, as it turned out. He was just moving his inventory from one table to another.

I love the flea market.

There, I said it. I know in the past I might have expressed disdain for these wonderlands of used goods, but that was only because my wife had a habit of torturing me by making me stay too long.

Fifteen minutes in a flea market? Fun! Forty-five minutes? Still fun, although my feet are starting to hurt and I swear I’ve seen this framed portrait of a scary hairless child on five tables already. Can we go now?

After an hour, I start to get grouchy, unless there happens to be something really special in the offerings that day. A fully stocked military supply table, for instance. That’ll do it. Or one of those giant heaps of rusted hand tools I always find so inviting. Will it be a turn-of-the-century bow saw today? Or a tetanus shot?

But generally, an hour is when I’ll start stomping my feet and threatening divorce. I’ll start to really resent those eyeless dolls, and if I have to look at one more Engelbert Humperdinck record, I’m gonna start flinging them like Ninja stars, do you hear me?

But not lately. Lately I’ve got flea market stamina. I go in thinking I don’t need anything at all, and then I find tables heaped high with things I need rather desperately.

Hurricane lamps? I buy them whenever I see them. Hand tools? When the power grid goes down, I’ll still be out there building stuff while others weep over their impotent electric drills.

And flashlights, and knives, and camping equipment they don’t make anymore. The flea market is a wonderland of things that were made in a time before cheap plastics took over and before all things were designed to be disposable. It’s like one big Christmas tree in there, and I love it, right down to the portrait of the creepy hairless child.

Where else besides the flea market are you going to find a full collection of knight’s armor, complete with sword? Where else will you find a sweet Middle English wardrobe that can be had for a handful of dollars?

Not that I bought any of that stuff, mind you.

I only bought the codpiece.

Mark LaFlamme is a Sun Journal staff writer. Rusted-tool lovers or sellers can email him at mlaflamme@sunjournal.com.

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