Why the haggles?

As part of our efforts to clear out the upstairs office in anticipation of a third roommate for our condo, Nurse Egg and I have been selling off redundant furniture and items on Craig's List. We have successfully offloaded my futon and her grandparents' love seat. We are still hopeful about selling off both our stereos and some miscellaneous crap I've been holding onto for far too long. Like my mail safe.



I purchased the mail safe as part of my better management initiative a few years ago. The plan was to offer employees a discrete and even anonymous method of bringing things to the attention of management. It... failed. Unless you consider the offerings of ketchup packets, napkins, and other miscellaneous lunch materials that were stuffed inside a success, it seriously failed. It has been retired to my closet for nearly three years now and has made the journey with me as I moved from state to state. Unfortunately, I don't actually need a mail safe. In fact, I never should have purchased it in the first place, but I was trying to incorporate all the amazing ideals they installed in me during a management seminar and I was incredibly naive.

The original purchase price was $75. Yeah, I know. Yikes. I used to have that sort of disposable income. No longer, however. The success of our selling campaign on Craig's List has been in large part due to the way I've marketed it. "Amazing $25 house moving sale!" where "Everything we list will cost you only $25!" It's been incredibly effective. The original plan was to simply drag it all out to the curb and let waste management take care of it or allow dumpster divers to take their pick of the lot. But, if we can make a little extra cash by simply making a few posts online, why not? Again, it's been incredibly effective. You can't argue with that price point for the things we're offering. At least, not until I posted the mail safe. I received the following email shortly after doing so:

you must be outta your mind. Lowes sells those and similar ones brand new for $30 with hardware and 2 keys.

please

its worth $10

I only have one of the two keys that came with the thing, since my previous employer demanded she be included in my better management initiative and then never returned the key when it failed. Also, I threw away the mounting hardware during one of my purging cleaning phases. I had never intended to use or sell the thing. I'm not entirely sure what I intended to do with it, but I had paid some money for it so I kept it around while I tried to figure something out.

Anyway, I read this response and wondered if it could possibly be true. Had the price dropped that low on this item? It was worth investigating. After browsing the store's site, I responded to the email with this"

Then go to Lowes where you'll spend $65 on this exact (not similar) item according to the current lising on Lowes.com.

http://www.lowes.com/pd_30825-1622-LMSK00000_4294856644_4294937087_?productId=3032303&Ns=p_product_prd_lis_ord_nbr|0||p_product_qty_sales_dollar|1&pl=1¤tURL=%2Fpl_Mailboxes%2B_4294856644_4294937087_%3FNs%3Dp_product_prd_lis_ord_nbr%7C0%7C%7Cp_product_qty_sales_dollar%7C1&facetInfo=

I'm offering the item with a more than 50% price reduction for a few missing mounting screws. Yeah, I must be out of my mind.

I haven't received a response as of yet. If I do, I'm going to raise my asking price to $45. That's an asshole tax. If you're going to be deceitful and just make up numbers in order to try to negotiate or haggle a lower buying price, the number one rule is not to get caught in your own lie. It took me all of ten seconds to search the site for the listing and type out my rebuttal. I shouldn't be surprised to get this sort of half-assed attempt at bartering from an Italian. But he shouldn't be surprised to be outmatched and called out on his bullshit by an efficient, resourceful German.

In other news, I'm sick so my tolerance of bullshit is almost non-existent. I told someone off that same day for throwing himself a pity party. I can understand the ocassional emotional crisis or neediness or whatever, but when it's every month? That's excessive. I don't respond well to that. Normally, I can at least refrain from acting on my impulses to do exactly what I did the other day. It was incredibly brutal, but it was completely honest. I laid out some very tough truths and force fed them to him. His response was rather predictable for someone who has never been on the receiving end of my insanity and rage. He withdrew and hid for 24 hours. I gave him quite a lot to think about and sulk over. Half of that was meant to inspire him or light a fire under his ass, the other half was meant to make him shut the hell up and stop using pity as a way to get attention. I really hoped that my better intentions would trump my lesser ones, but I'm not sure that'll happen. I guess I'm just not interested in playing along anymore. It's become nearly impossible for me to simply maintain the status quo and allow things to simply roll off my back.

No one has to listen to me, but you'll damn sure hear me.