On Friday night I told Ben that I planned to go to the farmer’s market the next morning to get eggs. He’s the market manager for the downtown market and the one in Sunset Valley, which is where we usually go.
“If you want eggs,” he said, “get there before the market opens. The eggs go fast. Seriously, get there by 8:45.”
I took him at his word. I left the house at 8:26.
The market is nearby. When I got there, some vendors were still setting up. But some were already selling. I got in line for eggs. There were three people in front of me.
They have special protocols in place at the market now. There’s a hand-washing station at the entrance with warm water which is an unexpectedly pleasant bonus. There is a greeter at the entrance, also, to direct the customers to the washing station and let them know that they go in here and out the other end — one-way pedestrian traffic flow, more or less. The vendor booths are spaced out much more than usual, and the vendors all have one person who exclusively handles the money and nothing else and another person who selects the products for you, handing you the tomato or bunch of carrots that you point at. Some of them had the system down pretty well. Others were still coming up to speed.
This is new for all of us: the farmers, the market staff, the customers. Most of the vendors had figured out that they didn’t need to touch credit cards, either. They would just hold up their device and you’d stick your card in the slot. You don’t touch their device. They don’t touch your card. However, the flaw in that system was that all those point-of-sale systems require you to sign on a digital pad. So after all that seller-consumer distancing, we all had to rub fingers on the same signature pad. Ben nodded when I told him that. He says he’s going to fix it next week.
I managed to score two dozen eggs from Flintrock Hill Farm. And some kale and tomatoes for the fair and industrious Trudy. (“Four medium tomatoes. You choose them,” I told the person who handled the produce. “I’ll take the tomatos you select.”) And I got some frozen meat back near the entrance, and a loaf of sourdough down towards the end. And some creamed honey just before I left.
I wasn’t there long, maybe 25 minutes. By the time I left, there was a line of 30 people or so waiting to get in with other lines at the booths. I have a feeling not everyone got the eggs they were looking for.
Ben was right.