Frustration at the Farmer's Market

Today I went to the Farmer's Market. Our local market is quite small but always worth stopping by. I got my hubby some nice dry Italian sausage at one stand.

At another I inquired as to whether the beautiful gluten-free items were also vegan. I was quickly told no, all items had both eggs and butter. I smiled, said 'thanks anyway' and started to walk away. The vendor stopped me to hand me her card. I told her I appreciated the effort but I am a vegan, and my daughter (who was not present), while still eating eggs, is an otherwise animal-ingredient free vegetarian. She seemed to become short of patience with me when she started to tell me she could make cupcakes that were vegan. I nodded and told her that baking vegan/gluten free was not easy, was a challenge I'd been up against for years and that I understood. She persisted in telling me how hard it is to make cookies vegan/gf, etc. I finally extracted myself from the situation wondering what she had hoped to accomplish. Did she expect me to suddenly not be sensitive (morally or physically) to animal products?

As I made my way back to my car I spotted nice quarts of sour cherries for $3. Stopping to buy some I experienced frustration #2 of the local market. I asked the woman not to bag them, since I had bags in the car. She nodded vacantly at me and picked up a plastic bag. I held out my hand and said, 'no bag necessary' thinking that maybe she hadn't heard me the first time, but she continued to bag them, then set them in front of me and asked 'is that bag, ok?' I gave up, it wasn't worth trying to explain when she clearly wasn't listening. So I hand her a nice, crisp $10 and apologize for not having a smaller bill. She hands me back two singles. I stop a minute, waiting for the $5 but she starts to go back to her chair. I politely tell her I gave her a 10, to which she says 'and I gave you back 7'. Meanwhile I'm standing in front of her dangling two singles from one hand and one single in the other hand which had originally held $11 till I gave the $10 to her. She stood there a moment, then begrudgingly gave me a $5 bill.

I guess I'll stick with my CSA, despite the fact that I don't get much fruit there. The people are such sweethearts I must be spoiled by them.