Being a Master Haggler in New Orleans - I wasn't trying to be!

Sometimes I pretend to be a tourist in New Orleans, even when I live there. It’s fun to grab a camera and venture into the French Quarter for a while, whether to walk around taking pictures or sit in Jackson Square and people watch.

I’d usually become a tourist when my family decided to visit. We’d take part in the usual tourist activities such as strolling around the French Quarter, eating beignets, etc.

On one particular visit we were browsing through the French Market and I spotted a shiny, silver, cat necklace among a row of necklaces at one of the vendor booths. I looked down at it and made some small comment like, “A cat!”

The vendor heard me and walked over. She saw me looking at the cat necklace and said, “Thirty-five dollars.”

With the thought of buying it not even having crossed my mind, I started smiling and shaking my head. “Oh, no, I was just looking,” I mumbled, looking down.

She immediately responded, “Thirty.”

Again, I said, “Oh, no, no, thank you.”

“Twenty-five.”

I hesitated, “I…No, it’s okay.” I was trying to tell her sorry, I didn’t want to buy her product, still shaking my head.

“You tell me how much you want to pay for it,” she said.

“Oh gosh, I don’t know… uh…. I…”

“Fifteen.”

At this point, having heard the price of this necklace go from $35 to just $15 I couldn’t pass it up, so I said “okay” and bought it.

Somehow I talked a necklace priced at $35 down to $15, when I wasn’t even trying to! I’d never experienced that before. I really had meant no when I said no.

However, I know that if I’d been purposefully trying to haggle for something I wanted, I wouldn’t have been able to pull it off. But apparently if I’m caught off guard and hesitantly say “no thank you” over and over again… I’m a master haggler!

In the end, maybe I’m a sucker because I did end up buying her product when I had no intention to when I first saw it, but $15 for a shiny cat necklace still doesn’t sound too bad. Now I wear it all the time and it reminds me of Nola :)