For You? Half Price

The other day I blogged that I had "scored" a Native American designed and wrought (or perhaps cast) silver money clip for ten dollars.  The purchase was made all the more satisfying by the fact that I had bargained down the price from twenty dollars.  The seller was a shy and unassuming Native American woman who had set up shop at a very picturesque rest stop/viewpoint along State Route 92 outside Salt Lake City Utah.  Tammy and I were on our way to the Sundance Resort for some downhill mountain biking.  Going to high priced resort spas for the day has become somewhat of a distraction for us during our regularly planned adventure trips.  Since we only spend our sleeping hours in the room why pay upwards of $275.00  just for a bed?  We never get room service and we never lie around watching cable in the room.  As a day guest one can usually pay for amenities such as a massage and enjoy the grounds and all the facilities for the entire day.  When we are finished recreating we drive back to The Motel 6 or our tent and we are just as rested as the Kennedys.

In many countries the proprietor would consider it rude if you did not haggle.  They know the hand carved drum is over priced.  They know you know the hand carved drum is over priced.  And you know they know.........  And if you don't act like there is even a possibility you will buy it he will take it as a personal insult that you don't think his crafts are worth your time.  When I was in New Mexico last year I somehow got it into my head that I needed a hand made shaman's drum.  You know, the kind they beat in the sweat lodge until your peyote button induced hallucinations, vomiting, and trembling make you so disturbingly twisted that you actually believe you were present when Pte-San-Hunka ( Chief White Bull) shot Custer with his own gun.  Or so I have heard.  Anyway I was driving through the Cochiti Pueblo near Albuquerque when I happened upon a small ranch house with a sign outside reading "handmade native drums for sale".  Tammy was at her CEO meeting back in town so I was on my own.  Not that she could have protected me from the three wolf-dogs growling at me as I got out of my rented Chevy Cavalier.  No, I value Tammy more for her abilitity to prevent me from getting ripped off for a chachka I will regret buying in eight months .

Tammy is a very shrewd haggler.  There is really nothing she wants so badly that she isn't willing to walk away if she hasn't bent the opposing party sufficiently to her side of fair.  Me, on the other hand, they can smell my enthusiasm for their trinkets the minute I get off the plane.  Our first trip together was a five day excursion to Jamaica in 1984.  I had just graduated from dental school and to pay for the trip I cashed a $500.00 bond my grandmother had given me for my thirteenth birthday.  I say thirteenth birthday and  not bar mitzvah because, you know, I wasn't.  Anyway, we were not yet married, but after this trip there could be no doubt that Tammy was the one who would take care of me for better or for worse.  We took a bus trip to a small "crafts village" that consisted of several rows of grass huts neatly aligned, with the artisans sitting outside patiently waiting to show off their wares and hopefully sell a handwoven basket to the well-heeled tourists.  As is our way, we were methodically browsing the huts in the proper order but an overly enthusiastic merchant from two rows down kept running up to us trying to make us skip all the shanties between our current one and hers.  After ten minutes of her cajoling, Tammy had finally had enough.  "I don't like your attitude" Tammy admonished her.  "Now we aren't going to stop at your hut at all.  We are going to skip right over it".  Meanwhile this woman had no shoes and I could clearly see the fifth through sixteenth ribs under her tattered t-shirt.  What does this have to do with haggling over the price of a handwoven Jamaican straw hat? 
Well, we left the village with various handwoven palm leaf contrivances smug in the knowledge that we really pulled one over on those peddlers.  This stuff would cost three times as much at Pier One.  Meanwhile, the ten dollars we saved was meaningless to us yet it probably would have fed an entire impoverished family in Jamaica for two weeks.  You see, people brag all the time about the great bargains they were able to wrangle from the natives while visiting a mostly impoverished nation.  Then when there is a hurricaine or tsunami, we guiltily send off a check for $50.00 to help those very same villagers.  My point is the twenty dollars means a hell of a lot more to some rug dealer in Pakistan than it does to the rich tourist who harassed him out of it and then brags about it.  But as I said earlier, they expect you to haggle so maybe I don't have a point.

Even Barack appreciates a good drum

But back to my drum.  I made my way up the driveway, past the dogs who, I was convinced, could smell a sucker, past the 1972 F-150 perched on two front tires and two rear cinder blocks, and non-chalantly knocked on the screen door which had one hinge and no screen.  I was warmly greeted by an elderly tribesman and I stated my desire to purchase a drum.  He brought me into his living room where about forty drums of various sizes and uses were on display.  His son was the drum maker but he was away on business.  I immediately fell in love with a 3 foot tall floor drum that had a beautiful sound.  There was no way I was getting it home on the plane and FedEx barely made it this far out onto the Rez.  We sat in his living room playing all the drums together until he declared I had found the right one.  It was a manageable sized ceremonial drum with a deep tonal sound and a nice patina to it's rawhide.  Something about my spirit aura while I played this particular drum made him quite sure that the drum had actually chosen me.  After he chanted a blessing for my journey home it was time to buy the drum.  It was priced at $150.00 but I really only wanted to pay $100.00.  He would not budge below $120.00 and a better deal maker than me would have started walking back to the car. As my hand would be opening the car door, the seller would surely give in.  But I like to think this somewhat mystical man was sincere in his warmth for me and my new drum.  Besides, the experience of the purchase was well worth the minor gnawing in my gut that I may have seen drums like this in town for $60.00. Since I only had $75.00 in cash with me (I never thought I would spend over $50.00), I paid the $120.00 half in cash and half with a check.

Well, I banged that drum both day and night sitting in my cabin for about six months hoping for some primal spiritual vision.  It never came.  Now it sits up high on a shelf, silent and alone.  But the spirits might have smiled on me after all.  Two years later and that check has still not been cashed.