Wanted: Wrinkles, Lots of Zip, Itch for a Flea Market

--Foster Porter knows what he wants in a woman: wrinkles, gray hair and lots of energy. “Need old woman,” his ad in the Floyd County (Ky.) Times said, “to operate Little Rabbit Flea Market, Martin, Ky. Live at flea market, housekeep for me.” “At least 60 years old,” he said after his ad appeared. “If they’re younger than that, they’re going to be looking for greener pastures. . . . An older woman’s more apt to stay.” A man won’t do? “A man keep house? You ain’t going to find a man to keep house, are you?” Porter, 78, worked on the railroad for 50 years, retiring in 1973. His wife died in 1981 and, he said: “Buddy, things are in bad shape around here. . . . I won’t work; I’m lazy. I’d like to have somebody to work up there and run that cotton-picking flea market.” He would split the market’s proceeds with the woman, he said. Four or five have called about the ad, he said, and two have visited. “They didn’t stay long.” The ad concluded: “Don’t care if people talk about you.” “People want to talk about somebody else,” Porter said, adding that there would be no cause for gossip. “I’m so old a woman don’t mean nothing to me except to do some work and have somebody to talk with.”

--A McMad customer sued the Bend, Ore., McDonald’s, contending that it had refused to serve him breakfast during its advertised breakfast hours. But Deschutes County District Judge Ed Perkins dismissed Durand Peters’ $1,000 lawsuit because Peters failed to demonstrate a loss. Peters said he reached the McDonald’s counter at 10:25 a.m. last Nov. 25, only to be told he could no longer order breakfast. The restaurant advertises that breakfast is available until 10:30. Peters told the judge that he, his family and two friends had to go to a more expensive restaurant to eat. Perkins was unimpressed. “If you want to buy an automobile and the dealer refused to sell at the advertised price, then you would have ascertainable loss,” the judge said. “But how do you compare restaurant to restaurant? What if one restaurant doesn’t provide exactly the same breakfast as another?” William Bloom, owner of the local McDonald’s, said none of his employees remember the McMiff. “I think the community takes this as a joke,” he said. “I know the corporation does.”