A hot surge of anger shot through me the moment my lights died for the second weekend in a row.
My neighbor’s glitter-dusted empire blazed away next door, powered by a secret extension cord I’d just discovered snaking out from her tent and plugged directly into my power strip.
When I confronted her, she had the audacity to call it “community power.”
That was before she began hiding my business sign behind the trash can and poaching my customers right in front of me.
She had no idea that her cheap extension cord and complete disregard for safety regulations were about to hand me all the evidence I needed to get her permanently relocated to a powerless, unvisited corner of the market right next to the dumpsters.
The Subtle Art of the Uninvited Guest: The Flicker of Doubt
The first Saturday of the Artisan’s Grove Market always had a special kind of magic. A low-lying mist burned off the grass by 8 a.m., leaving behind the scent of damp earth and brewing coffee. My little ten-by-ten tent felt like a sanctuary. Inside, my world was black ink and cream paper, the graceful curve of a capital ‘S’, the satisfying scratch of my favorite nib. I’m a hand-lettering artist. I create custom quotes, wedding vows, little love notes from the universe that people frame and hang on their walls. My name is Yvette, I’m forty-seven, and this little tent is my happy place.
My husband, Mark, had helped me set up the lighting, a string of warm, Edison-style bulbs that made my stall glow like a beacon of cozy. They cast a lovely light on the gold foil accents in my prints and made the whole space feel inviting. A woman was admiring a piece, a simple quote from Mary Oliver: “Instructions for living a life: Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.”
She smiled, her finger tracing the script. “This is just beautiful.”
“Thank you,” I started to say, but the words caught in my throat. The cozy glow vanished. My bulbs, my perfect, warm, inviting bulbs, went dark. A collective, disappointed “aww” came from the small group in my tent. The woman squinted at the print, the magic of the moment broken.
“Oh, what a shame,” she said, her interest already waning. She wandered off toward the booth next to mine.
My neighbor’s stall was an explosion of neon and glitter. It was packed with t-shirts bearing sassy sayings, tumblers coated in shimmering epoxy, and a hundred other loud, shiny things. And it was bright. Impossibly bright. Two massive LED light bars blazed away, making her sequined pillows sparkle like a disco ball. She had a heat press steaming in the corner. The woman who had just left my stall was now captivated by a mug that read, “I run on caffeine and chaos.”
My own booth was plunged into a gloomy twilight. I fiddled with the plug, traced the extension cord back to the central power pole provided by the market. It was plugged in securely. I tried a different outlet on my power strip. Nothing. It was just… dead.
A Neighborly Nudge
The owner of the glitter emporium, a woman maybe ten years younger than me with blonde hair piled in a messy bun and a perpetually cheerful, slightly strained smile, bounced over. “Having trouble?” she asked, her voice syrupy sweet.
“My lights just went out,” I said, frustration making my own voice tight. “The whole strip is dead.”
“Oh, bummer!” She peered at the power pole. “The wiring in this park is so ancient. It’s probably just a finicky outlet. Happens all the time.” She said it with the breezy authority of someone who had never experienced the problem herself. Her own stall continued to hum with enough electricity to power a small village.
I sighed, trying to force a polite smile. “I guess. It just killed a sale.”
“You’ll get another one!” she chirped. She then glanced at the small A-frame sign I’d placed at the edge of my stall, the one I had painstakingly lettered with my business name, “The Gilded Quill.” With a little hum, she nudged it with her foot, pushing it back a few inches. “There, that gives people more room to walk.”
It didn’t. It just tucked my sign neatly behind the leg of her display table, effectively hiding it from the main flow of traffic. I stared at the sign, then back at her. She was already flitting back to her booth, her attention captured by a new customer. I bit back the sharp retort that was on the tip of my tongue. She’s just trying to be helpful, I told myself, though it didn’t feel helpful at all. It felt like being erased.
I spent the rest of the day in the semi-darkness, watching customers pass by my shadowy stall, their eyes drawn to the dazzling light of my neighbor’s. I sold a few small prints to people who specifically sought me out, but my usual foot traffic was gone. Every time I looked over, the glitter woman—Candace, I learned her name was—was bagging up another t-shirt, her smile never faltering.
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