8.2.13
From the annals of craigslist
After getting a really bad flu and spending days sequestered in my apartment, I decided that it was time to give away some stuff. I had just broken my immersion blender, and thought that maybe, just maybe, someone could use it for parts, so I put the thing on craigslist free.
That was probably my mistake.
A woman named Sally emails me. She wants it, and can pick up "now". Oh, I think, she must be in my neighbourhood already! I'm about to head to the library, so I call the number she gave me, and get no answer. I write her that she can meet me at the library if she'd like. I go and return and still nothing from Sally who can pick it up "now".
Suddenly, my phone gets a voice mail (although it didn't ring) and it's from Sally. She wants to meet me at the library. I get an email reiterating the same. No, I write her, I'm already back home, but she's welcome to come by and pick up the thing. I call her and it goes directly to voice mail. At this point, I have spent probably 10 minutes writing emails and calling this woman, and checking her voice mails.
She writes back, I'm on my way! Coming from Brooklyn. What? So she's not in my neighbourhood. Is a broken immersion blender so important to drive all the way from Brooklyn? Also, she mentions that her phone was on mute, which is why she missed my calls. I just know that she is driving, and she will ask me to come downstairs, which I at that moment decide to not do. The suspicious thing in all this is the email she wrote me from: it's ___ebay@aol.com. It's not enough that I have to check the messages she left me, call her back and leave her messages in turn, not to mention all those emails. It's fine if she wants to sell my broken immersion blender on ebay, but I am NOT walking down six flights of stairs in my post-flu weakened state to award it to her.
In a little while, my phone beeps with a voice mail. She is in the neighbourhood and looking for a parking spot. Would I come downstairs? I call her back and tell her that I cannot come downstairs, but she is welcome to stop the car on the curb opposite my building, which is what I generally do when I need to run up. "I don't want to get a ticket," she whines. I am not budging, and tell her my apartment number. She sulks off to find parking. Our phone calls make me think that she's the kind of woman who wants to have conversations with strangers, something I just don't have time for today.
The bell rings, I buzz her in, and a while later I hear footsteps. I open the door and it's a woman in her late 40s, overweight, and with a CANE. Now I feel a little bad for not coming downstairs. She makes a comment about being way up on the 6th floor and I can see that if I don't immediately give her the bag, we were going to have a conversation after all, so I thrust the bag into her hands, say, "okay, enjoy!" and close the door.
I don't know anything else about the broken immersion blender, the cane, or the ebay sale. I was certain she was going to call me later on and complain that the blender doesn't work, but she didn't. A friend told me, "I hope she doesn't use it to do anything illegal", to which I responded, "no, she has a CANE for that!"
posted by a girl @ 08:46
0 Comments:
