When you mention the word “Festival,” it conjures up totally different ideas in the minds of men and women. For most women, the pulse quickens, the pupils dilate and they have dreams and visions of the perfect, hand-crafted knickknack. For most men, even the near-perfect sugar high produced by a combination of funnel cake and cotton candy still can’t make the festival an attractive draw. Festivals are simply made for women. The definition for “festival”--a periodic season or program of cultural events or entertainment--indicates though, that this is going to be a regular event on my family calendar, like it or not.
In this rough, though, I have found a diamond. Or at least, I found a chunk of granite: The Rock Lady of Fayette. She has been an established fixture on the Fayette County Festival circuit for over a decade. She makes Pet Rocks. Yep, that’s right, the 70’s curiosity that some people called a stone-cold scam. I mean, who in their right mind would ever pay money for a rock that someone claimed was a lovable, huggable bet. Hard earned cash should be used for more important things, like bottled water or vintage Kenny G albums. But, I’m not talking about a pet rock here, I’m talking about the pet rock experience.
Flora Perkins is the Rock Lady of Fayette. This is a name I gave to her, because frankly, J. Lo was taken. Flora will be 90 years old next April. She makes up the pet rocks, which are a stone with glued-on fur and paws painted on the underside. Pink paws indicate a “girl” rock, blue means a “boy.” But, that is just the beginning. You can also purchase a fuzzy family of teeny rocks in a film canister, a pet rock merry-go-round and a pet rock ferris wheel. There are pet rock houses, beds, furniture. When you purchase your pet rock, Flora always gives you a blanket and a pillow because “your pet rock can get cold at night.”
My daughter’s first grade teacher put us on the Pet Rock lady right before the Shakerag Festival in Peachtree City, telling her about this exciting mainstay of the festival circuit. Then it dawned on me. This is all a plot. To look at Flora you would think that she was simply a fascinating elderly woman with stories to tell and yarns to weave. But deeper, on introspection, this might be a more complex financial machine. Could the rock lady not have us all bamboozled?
Though my wife tells me I am crazy, I think maybe this is all a very wisely engineered symphony of salesmanship. It has all the elements. Flora is the perfect vendor of wares. She is knowledgeable of the marketplace and she has a monopoly on a much sought after product. It doesn’t matter that the buyers are rock-obsessed preschoolers and first graders. Also, she has a network of personnel advertising her locations as she wittingly moves from venue to venue. It is virus-like in way it spreads, more and more people telling of her rocks. And horror of horrors, who is really making these pet rocks? Has she partnered with Kathy Lee Gifford only to have preschoolers and first graders working in a Bangladesh sweatshop, producing these pale imitations of the original American genius?
Forget about the Government versus Microsoft and Bill Gates. The Rock Lady of Fayette should be the real target of anti-trust authorities. Others would argue our very way of festival life could be put in jeopardy should we target Flora. The whole economic puzzle of weekend craft sales could come crashing down, should this piece be removed. We I guess I could be wrong. Maybe Flora is just what she seems; a dear, old, intriguing lady--who wears a Rolex and drives a Porsche.