OK, this got MY panties in a twist. Velma and I are popping away in Springfield, having a good day when this little man walks up to me with a petulant look on his face. He doesn’t identify himself or tell me his name. “I understand you’ve been telling people that your product is kosher,” he says. I tell him that we’ve never told anyone that our kettle corn is kosher. In fact, when someone ASKS, we’ve always done a long-winded spiel about how rabbis have come by and told us that we COULD be kosher with the ingredients we’re using, but need to cough up some money and get certified. So we’ve always told anyone who asks, that our product is NOT kosher.

He then fires off a tirade about how this could lead to legal action against us and lawyers will be involved. At this point I assume this little nettlesome character is a rabbi. I tried to repeat what I had just told him…more slowly this time. He abruptly cuts me off and says that TWO people have told him that we’ve been telling people that it’s kosher, and we better stop saying it and that’s IT. (Including a curt little hand gesture.)

At this point I’m thinking how could anyone have thought that we told them this? Then it occurs to me–Steve has a funny satirical riff where he explains what our kettle corn ISN’T. (Free range, organic, low-fat, boneless, dolphin-safe, fair trade, kosher.) Click on the graphic on the main page called “Steve’s not quite true sales pitch” to hear his spiel.

You’ll notice on our website we blatantly spell out that what you’re hearing is NOT TRUE. Anyone with a flake of gray matter would realize that kettle corn CAN’T be free range, nor can something made with white sugar be organic or low-fat, there are no BONES in kettle corn. It has NOTHING to do with dolphins and nothing to do with imports, fair trade or otherwise. Therefore, it isn’t kosher either.

We thought Steve was being painfully obvious in his intent. It’s kind of like being sarcastic to someone, but they take what you’re saying to be literally true. Apparently, when some nitwit online listened to Steve’s silly riff, their little brains filtered out the part where we mention our kettle corn has no BONES or DOLPHINS in it and just heard the word “kosher.” Ah ha, now I think I got it. I start to explain all this to my diminutive antagonist. He doesn’t want to hear any of it, reiterates his threat, and gives me the curt hand gesture one last time, driving his point home.

When I told Steve all this, he couldn’t believe people could be so thick. He agreed that he’ll alter his spiel for the completely dim out there. It pains me to no end that I now have to put another “Velma sign” up saying our kettle corn is NOT KOSHER. What’s a “Velma sign”? Little notices that we hang from our tent telling the public FUCKING OBVIOUS things, just so we can’t be held liable. (There are un-popped kernels in it.  Our stuff has sugar in it. It is made fresh.)  I kind of scoffed at Velma for putting them up, figuring people in general can’t be THAT stupid. *HEAVY SIGH*

Velma here: Ha! I told him so!

Didn’t get a change to shoot any video this week. Both Springfield and Framingham turned into a record days so I was going nuts on both days.

So this old Russian guy came by last year and really got Velma’s panties in a twist. I guess he was expecting to trade some little plastic toys for kettle corn. Apparently the guy just took a bag of kettle corn off our table and left the crap in it’s place. We suspected he was just playing the role of “ignorant foreign guy” who figured he could do and get what he wanted. Velma was having none of it. The guy came by again this year and was hocking cheap jewelry, so Steve and I went for it. See the video below for all the details.

We’ve been doing very steady business at both our locations.  Steve and I joke that we USED to take a book with us, just in case it got slow.  I barely have time to eat lunch and take a drink during Springfield.  I’ve got an idea on a motorized lid for the kettle.  Not sure when I can build the thing, but it would increase productivity if it works.

We’ve also had some weird things happen with our BUY KETTLE CORN page.  We’ve received some emails in the past which look like a “phishing” scam.  We’ve been ignoring them up till now, except when I decided to ream the spammer a new asshole.  Come to find out that it WASN’T a spammer, but a legit customer who ended up filling out the wrong order cart.  Not sure how it happened, but we’re looking into it big time.

There is this one woman in Springfield who has been buying our kettle corn all summer long. I’ve always called her the colorful lady because she only wears bright, colorful clothing and has sections of her hair colored with big chunks of bright color. You would think I’m talking about an 18 year old, but I would put her around Velma’s age. At this point, I have no idea what her name is.

I’ve started to compliment her about her funky choice in colors and I’ve looked forward to seeing this one person arrive each Tuesday. I’ve learned that she’s a creative type person and she’s very sharp and “with it”. On day she even had her daughter with her and SHE had chunks of color in her hair. The joke as told: she inherited her mothers hair color. (Bright pink)

As I’ve gotten to know her over the summer I’ve decided to push my boundaries a little and started to “taunt” her that if she REALLY was a colorful person, she’d wear something Day-Glo for me and I would reward her with a free bag of kettle corn. She found this intriguing and seemed up to the challenge.

Over the course of a few weeks, she never arrived with any day glow and I expressed my disappointment. She said she thought she had something with Day-Glo (not just a trinket or scarf, but either a full top or bottom) but couldn’t come up with the goods at this time. I then gave her another challenge: how about if you wear ALL BLACK one day? This would be completely opposite of what she normally does and it may even disrupt the “fabric” of things around the market. She thought that it might be too cliché for an artsy person like herself to wear around town. I dared her again and pulled out the big guns: 3 FREE LARGE BAGSS OF KETTLE CORN if she does.

Next week arrives; she did it! We had a laugh and I said that she shall now be know as “the lady in black” (even when wearing a polka dot dress). She agreed that by getting kettle corn for wearing black, she fell into a Pavlovian experiment where she will now associate a yummy and content feeling with the color black. From now on, she may actually salivate when she thinks of a little black dress. All these conflicting feelings when she now looks at her colorful wardrobe! I find this pretty cool that I can now influence people with my sinister tools of power…large bags of kettle corn! [insert evil laughter here]