I don't know if the term is common there or its an American thing.

These are fun places to explore, an eclectic mix of actual antiques, jumble-fodder, boot-sale junque, crafts and what the Yanks call "primitives" (a word on that nonsense a little further in), overproduced "collectables", and just plain clutter.

The standard model here is a storefront of some sort divided off into "booths" rented to individual dealers, a dealer could be a real seller of antiquities or someone who emptied his Nan's house or bought the contents of a storage unit (another baffling thing here; you have so much junk you rent a place to pile it in rather than, oh I don't know, getting rid of it?). After you die or otherwise are in default of the rent on this storage unit, the owners auction off the contents and folks actually buy these on spec, hoping for hidden treasures to appear.

Another are the craft people, funniest ones the purveyors of the "primitive", a loose term for decorative shyte made from twigs and old barnwood used by the Chip & Joanna HGTV crowd to decorate their otherwise colourless interiors.

I mention that crowd because they perhaps started what is becoming more and more of a trend in these antique malls, which is to bring the TV interior decorator mindset to ones' booth. Rather than display for sales there are any number of people who watch their favourite show in the morning, a quick lunch, then rush down to their booths dragging ladders, toolboxes-on-wheels and husband-labour with them to redecorate yet again. It even becomes competitive.

I believe these people rent the space purposely to decorate as a hobby onto itself, not to sell enough to make rent or indeed to sell anything at all, just show off their interior decorator "skills". They don't actually want you buying anything, especially a key piece the entire display is visually anchored upon.

This has all the lunacy of the food-to-look-at-not-eat silliness we discussed the other day and is just as worthy of resistance.

The fun is to remember this junk is still theoretically for sale, so I get to pick it up and inspect it. I, as a shopper, might not put it back exactly where it was which I have noticed causes a certain anxiety or even seething in Wannabe Joanna and some opportunities for a bit of subtle protest to this lunacy.

Here's an example I saw the other day; I wish I was the one who did this one. Deliciously subtle: