It
is best to prepare for the days of necessity
That’s
the moral of the Ant and the Grasshopper, an Aesop's fable, and it’s one that I
had to keep reminding myself of this weekend.
Being
Mother’s Day weekend, advertised yard/garage sales weren’t quite as plentiful
as normal, and after looking around the backlog in my storage room (AKA our
great room), I decided to take the day off, sleep a little later, and try to
get caught up on my listing.
Ella,
however, wasn’t buying it (pun intended), though, and took it upon herself to
peruse Craigslist on Friday night, and make a list of yard/garage sale targets
for Saturday morning. Admittedly, there
were more than enough sales to keep us busy, but the lure of sleeping late
still lingered in my mind.
Dutifully,
though, I set my alarm, and was up at the crack of dawn on Saturday, and we
were out the door by 6:40ish, running a little late for the first 7 a.m. sale. I was still grumbling to myself, wiping the
sleep out of my eyes, when we pulled up to the sale, and saw our main
competition already there, getting the perceived, and probably a few real,
bargains.
At
that moment, I realized that I was being the proverbial grasshopper, and, much
to my chagrin, my competition was being the figurative ant.
It
was an eye opener, literally. So, I
spent the rest of the morning shedding the grasshopper mentality, and becoming
very ant-like, and very methodical with my purchases, with an eye toward not only maintaining a large inventory, but also making sure I always have something to list, no matter how big a mess my great room is.
D'oh! Moment of
the Weekend
It
wasn’t the first time, and knowing me, probably won’t be the last time, but we
tried to go to a neighborhood yard sale a week in advance.
The
sale was to be one of our main stops, but when we pulled into the neighborhood,
we were surprised by the lack of open garages.
Now, it’s not particularly uncommon to find sparse participation in a
big neighborhood, but this was nothing, nada, zilch, zippo.
After
riding around the block, I stopped to look at the Craigslist ad.
D’oh!!!!!!!
It
was scheduled for next weekend, as the ad plainly said, but they listed it
right in the middle of this weekend’s sales, and we goofed by not reading the
date.
I
hate it when that happens.
Email of the Weekend
I
sold one of those urban dog-tag type charms/pendants
designed to be worn on a chain that seem to be popular these days. It was from my failed experiment of buying
storage units, and had taken forever to sell.
I had lowered the price repeatedly, and it finally crawled out the door
for $40.
Obviously,
it’s cosmetic gold jewelry, probably gold plated, but it is labeled as 14k on
the back, which was plainly detailed in the ad. So, I had no problem using “Gold”
as one of the keywords in the title.
What
I should have done, though, is put this in the description:
“No,
you idiot, I am not selling a high-end gold pendant for $40 that you can sell
to the gold store on the corner for 10 times that amount.”
Had
I done so, though, I might not have received this email from the buyer:
“I received the item today. I need to return it to you so you can
refund the money to me since the item it's not gold. It's metal.”
I was nice, and said he could return it, instead of commenting on
the fact that gold is actually a metal, and that he should spend a little more
time on his grammar instead of trying to make a quick buck off eBay.
Sale of the Weekend
It was a nice way to end Sunday evening.
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