The Big Kahunas With All the Moola Do Not Approve of This Post

Just a few notes about awesome things, before I get into non awesome things, like Craigslist people. I am feeling very comedic at the moment, so hopefully this post will offset the balance of the last one. These things are listed in no particular order other than awesome sauce.

* Greta Hayley has a secret talent that not even I was aware of until four days ago. She is a little boss at killing bugs. She killed three bugs in four days for me, and she did it with pizazz. The first bug was one of those stink bugs that flew down and landed on her paw. She looked at me, looked back at the stink bug, did it all over again, and then took her paw and whacked it one. Then, she looked at me again and I applauded her. I'm sorry if her bug killing talents offend anyone.

Second, there was some bee flying around in the kitchen. We could hear it from the living room. I got up to go into the kitchen and heard this little bark come out of Greta, and then a scurry and snapping sound. By the time I got to where she was, the bee was dead, and she was giving me this awfully proud look. If I could have high-fived her, I would have.

Third, I was trying to paint out on the porch, and there was this fly that was all up in my business. I have to think that fly knew that I had a paintbrush in my hands and couldn't attack him or her, so he or she thought he would just make up for every fly I've ever murdered by annoying me. Sure enough, he only got about two minutes in when Greta snapped her little jaw and then spit him back out again. She looked at me, I looked at her, and I had but one thing to say.

"Like a boss, Greta. Like a boss."

* I finally got Penelope Lola back. Penelope Lola is my car that has been un-drivable for a year and a half, until someone could finally figure out what was going on with it. Now I am a bit of a neatnik about my car, so imagine my horror when I had it returned to me after six months and found grease in places I didn't think grease could get into. I am literally going to have to take the rug scrubber down with the extension and scrub out the cloth seats of my car, the floor, and anything else with material covering it. Then, I'm going to have to scrub down every inch of the inside of my car with antibacterial wipes, and soap and water. And that's just the inside of my car. The outside is another horror, as instead of being tucked into her favorite garage, she had been left to sit outside for six months straight. Did I mention the inside of my car is tan and the outside silver? I am so screwed. And I'd be mad that it was that dirty, as opposed to just reasonably dirty, but he's the only one who figured out what was wrong with my car in a year and a half, so I kind of love him and therefore it's just funny.

Also, it's hard to hate a mechanic that tells kick-ass stories. Somehow we got into talking about lines of credit, and he was telling us that someone he knew had a workshop that was as big as his garage that he used just for woodworking, which was his hobby. His entire workshop, workbench, to outdoor supplies such as lawn mowers that were stored in there, were all from Sears and all Sears brand. This is a man who bled for Sears. For all intents and purposes, he would have a love affair with Sears if it was legal. So one day he was in the store, buying his Sears stuff and minding his own business, when an employee told him that if he went on ahead and got a Sears card that he could save some money on his purchases. Delighted and feeling as if he already owned half the store, he decided to go ahead and get a Sears credit card. He was denied.

* Is it possible to feel bad for someone's hair, because you know that no hair is supposed to look like that and imagine the torture it's been through in order to be made that way? Because I do feel bad for someone's hair, and I'm just making sure that's totally sane. Hint: It's not.

* I am still being stalked by my dentist. Well, not him specifically and not his office itself, but the girls who work there and insist I have to get my teeth cleaned right now. I've told them numerous times to chill out, that I'm going through some stuff with my migraines and medication adjustments, and that right now getting my teeth cleaned is the least of my worries. It hasn't stopped them, and when they have someone cancel, they somehow think it appropriate to call me and see if I want the appointment. It amuses me that they think I'm going to say something different each time they call. Also, my doctors said I do not need to take a pre-med before I get my teeth cleaned, but the the dentist won't allow me to get my teeth cleaned without one, and the kind of pre-med they want me to take actually exacerbates migraines. We've got a whole lot of fail going on here.

* I wrote an email where I had to reiterate that someone was 34 years old...in people years. Not dog years, people years. It's sad when that disclaimer is necessary.

* On one of the local home listings my mom was sifting through, under selling points it stated, "Neighbor has new tin roof." We're still not sure how that's a selling point.

* I was watching Say Yes to the Dress today and some girl said that she was Persian, which made her just like the Kardashians, but prettier. I decided it necessary to talk to the TV and tell her the Kardashians are Armenian. I don't know if I should be proud I know that or embarrassed, so let's just meet somewhere in between.

* I know I've mentioned before that I don't care for the character of Ashley Seaver on Criminal Minds, but I love Rachel Nichols. Love. Her Twitter is the source of much amusement for me, and I think I want to adopt her as my best friend, but since that's both impossible and creepy, I'll pass. Two of my favorite tweets by her are as follows:

RachelNichols1
Dear GymBoy: The boobs are mine. Your eyes seem to be attempting theft. It doesn't matter how long you stare...they won't abandon my ship!

Rachel Nichols
Dear Neighbors-Playing-Techno, I will unforgivingly toilet-paper your house and egg the cars in front if this continues. You've been warned.

Considering she hates her neighbors and their ridiculous loudness, and we hate ours for the same reason, I'm pretty sure she and I would be perfect neighbors. Either way, follow her on Twitter. I promise if you like this blog that you will love her, and you don't even have to like her character on Criminal Minds, but please be nice to her. She's very talented and has no control over writing her own character, so it's not her fault, guys. Even Thomas Gibson thinks you should be nice to her, and he's actually on the show.

All of that was more awesome than I was prepared for, but I'm still going to go ahead with the original post. As I've mentioned a ludicrous amount of times before, people on Craigslist are crazy, so much so that I've made a tag for them on the blog. Not all of them, mind you, but a vast majority. For the years I've been selling on there and complaining about people, I realized one thing; clearly I am the true moron here, because I keep posting on there. Sue me, but I want to get things sold, and that used to happen, but now it's just a whole lot of idiots that never pan out, show up, or come with the correct type of payment or amount of money. It's like nobody can read anymore, and it's getting crazy up in there, folks. That being said, I've come to you with more stories about my endeavors in selling.

I'll start you out gentle, because the last two stories are whoppers, so I'll work you into this. The first lady I'd like to tell you about was a lady who was interested in one of my horse items. She emailed me and wanted to know if the item was still available, because she just had to have it. I told her that it was and never heard back from her. I guess she just enjoyed sounding desperate, but really didn't need to have it at all. Or maybe she was one of those people who thinks if they tell you that they have to have it, you'll lower the price, and when you don't, they either go away or fight with you. (I've seen this far too many times.) It may forever remain a mystery.

The next person was a guy, and I'm really not sure where the comprehension problem was, or if he's one of those delightful telemarketers that you can never understand and know they're from a land far, far away, but has a very American name, in his spare time. He wanted CD stands that I was selling and asked me for the measurements of them and when we could meet so he could pick them up, as all my ads state that the person is responsible for pickup or shipping costs. I emailed him back with both of these things. I received two more emails from him asking when we could meet, but the first one of those stated that the sizes were perfect and he wanted them. Therefore, he had read the email with the measurements, that had also included the days and times for the next week that I could meet him, but missed the days and times. I sent it to him again, and still got a third email asking me the same question. I gave him one more chance and figured if he asked me again, I was just done dealing with stupid. I didn't hear from him again.

That was, at least, until Monday of this week, four days later. Two of the days I had told him I could meet him were Monday morning and Wednesday. This was now Monday afternoon, so obviously Monday was no longer an option. In the email he said he would meet me Tuesday, if that was still okay. Tuesday was never okay. Tuesday was never a day I gave him the option of meeting me on, and he even asked me three times what days I could meet him. I emailed him back right away and resisted saying, "Hey, you idiot, learn to read if you're going to ask me the same thing three times," and instead ate humble pie and apologized, telling him I could not meet Tuesday, but that I could meet him Wednesday. If you're counting, this is the fourth time I've told him I could meet him Wednesday, and the fourth time I reiterated what days I could meet him. I've not heard back from him yet.

He's not the only person who has been a pain in the ass over fourteen dollars in CD racks, yes, racks, as in plural, so I'm selling them super cheap. Another guy wanted to know if I could bring them to him over an hour away, despite me listing otherwise in the ad. Delete. But I think what was spectacular about this dude was not only the fact that he made me question is reading skills, but the fact that if he was planning on meeting me Tuesday, he had to have checked his email between Monday and Tuesday to see if I agreed to it and for me to give him the address of the meeting place, as I never do that until I have a day locked down. People are just too crazy for me to feel safe doing that before then. Either way, this guy either never checked his email and wouldn't have shown up Tuesday, leaving me waiting for him, or he did check it and didn't feel it important enough to let me know if he could do Wednesday or not. I have a feeling I haven't heard the last of him, but I'm just done dealing with him. We're going to have a yard sale soon, and CD racks almost always go. I can't put any more energy into stupid for fourteen bucks, nor can I trust this guy to show up if we do lock down a date. I don't even think he knows what he's doing. Maybe I should pray for him and his poor mind?

As for these next two stories, I'm not really sure which one is worse and which person's tree goes the least of the way to the top, but I do know which one makes me angry and which one makes me laugh. I'll let you guys figure out which is which.

This one comes not from Craigslist, but from a site where you specifically sell horse tack. Since that's primarily what I'm selling, with the exception of the CD racks, I thought it smart to put the stuff on there. Plus, I've sold stuff through there before with minimal problems, however, horse people are exponentially weirder than regular people. If you're a horse person, I'm sorry, but don't deny it. I, myself, have been a horse person and am well aware of the atmosphere. Hell, I'm sure people looked at me several times and said, "what a moronic horse person," so it's fine. We're all friends here.

One of the items I had posted complete with a picture was a red winter horse blanket. This lady emails me and asks me what color the blanket was, despite the picture. I rolled my eyes, but since she couldn't see me do it, I simply answered her and moved on with my day. I didn't hear from her for several days, but then one day I got an email from her asking me if she could have a picture of the blanket. As I said, the ad contained said picture, so I was just composing an email to her telling her to please refer to the ad, when she wrote me again and told me to "Never mind. I want a blue blanket." I'll just give you a minute to face palm before I elaborate. Go ahead. It's okay. I did it, too.

What makes this story particularly interesting to me is that the person could have answered their own question and not had to go through all of this by just paying attention to the ad itself. But even though, I am selling an expensive blanket for 28% of the price. It was used once very briefly and isn't dirty or anything. It's in like-new condition. Winter horse blankets are also never seen by anyone but the people at the barn, for the most part. Look, I know some people are awfully picky about what color of stuff they want, and I get that, but if you're getting something for 28% of the cost in like-new condition, and no one else is really going to see it, does the color really matter? Oh well, at least she wasn't one of those people who asked me if they could get it cheaper since they didn't like the color, or if I could change the color, or if I had another one in a different color that they could have cheaper since I caused them distress by not posting one in their color. I'm not a store. I make that disclaimer on every ad, but still this happens to me with nearly every item. It's a hard knock life.

This story is definitely in my top five stories of crazy Craigslist people. It's very close to number one, too, right behind the lady who told me she wanted to buy my horse for her kid, but she never actually had a kid. I'm still confused over that one, but it's fine. Moving on to this lady. I got an email from someone who was interested in the chaps I had for sale. In the ad, I posted the size of them, plus my own height and weight so that people could get an idea of who they will and will not fit. With chaps, there's no wiggle room. They either fit or don't.

When this girl first emailed me, something about her wording threw me off, but who am I to judge someone just because they speak differently from me? Still, I thought something was up, but I put that suspicion aside and answered her back. Folks, never put that suspicion aside on Craigslist. Never. Ever. Never. I can't say that enough.

Nothing odd popped up other than that in our correspondence, so I thought things were fine, and she was interested in buying them, but then I didn't hear from her again. This happens all the time, so I shrugged it off and went on with life. Easter Sunday, I heard back from her. Her email said this exactly. "R these still avail? Call me if they r," and then there was her phone number, which I'm tempted to not remit, but would like to think I'm not that big of a jerk.

Another thing I've learned on Craigslist is to never, ever give someone your phone number unless there's an item that you can not remove from the house to meet them in the safety of a public place, and they must come to your house. Then, you have to give them your phone number in case they get lost. Otherwise, you're just asking for people to call you repeatedly about your item, and goodness be you tell them that you will not take the ridiculously low price they've offered, because then they will just call you more and try to harass you into allowing them to buy the item for two cents on the dollar. It's just not a good idea. Plus, when you already have the internet, it's useless to waste cell phone minutes explaining to someone where they are going, because God forbid they'd use mapquest, or if they agree to do that, you usually end up repeating your address to them twenty times anyway. The internet is just easier for that sort of thing. And obviously, if they emailed me about the item, they can function their way through email.

That being said, I emailed her back and just politely explained to her that I did not make phone calls or give out my number unless absolutely necessary, due to previous issues on Craigslist, but would be happy to email her anything she needed. The email I got back was an absolute rant in text speak, wherein she very finitely told me that I would basically be calling her and would not be emailing her anymore, end of story. I would not, especially not after that, because she was quickly proving my point about why it's a bad idea to give people on Craigslist your number. You can block an email, but my cell phone service provider does not give me that same option.

Now, that original sneaking suspicion was crawling back into my veins. It wasn't just her wording or her lack of being able to spell anything out, but it was the tone of the email, and the defiant, fussy attitude of a teenager that struck me odd about her and made me suspect something was up. Not only that, but prior to then she had been just fine emailing me back and forth, but now, all of a sudden she was telling me that "You can not email me anymore and have to call me." Upset at her language and, quite frankly, her teenage angst behavior, I nicely wrote her back and told her that I was sorry, but I would absolutely not be calling her, especially not after that email, and that if she wanted to meet me, I could meet her on these days at these locations, if that would make it easier for her. All she had to do was pick where and when. Even after I sent the email, something didn't sit right with me.

Up until this point, I had not paid attention to her email address, mostly because her name was attached to the email, so every time an email came through, it came through with her name attached. This is when I decided to look at the email address that was next to her name inside of the email, and that's when I had a good idea of what was going on and flashbacks of previous catastrophes of selling horse items came back to me. I haven't sold anything of the horse persuasion in a few years, so I had nearly forgotten about how many young kids would email me, and the tone of their emails was very specific, as was the way they typed, spelled, etc., and I knew then that was what was striking me funny about this girl. I was subconsciously having a flashback of the other issues I had gone through with kids, but couldn't quite grasp it at the surface. The fact that her email was practically ILuvJustinBieber4evas (but not actually that), gave it away.

Armed with her full name (and an extremely unusual last name at that), email address and phone number, I looked her up on Facebook. It took me about five seconds to find her. And, you guessed it, she was some mouthy little teenager, too young to even drive to pick up said chaps. Here's where I'd like to put a disclaimer. I'm well aware not all teenagers are mouthy, in fact, most aren't, but this one is, and many of the ones I've dealt with through selling things have been.(I had one who was just fantastic, so fantastic, in fact, that I did give her a break on the price, and she continue to contact me and let me know how much she was appreciating the item for almost a year after.) They usually like to try to get me to give them a cheaper price, and by cheap, we're talking less than half of what I'm asking, and when I won't, I get obscenity laden emails full of whining and insults from them. They tell me that it's not okay to charge a teenager that much. What gets me is that apparently it's okay for them to expect me to give them a break because they're a teenager and rip myself off. But I digress. I also want to say that I know teenagers have parents that could drive them to pick something up, but when I went back over her emails and perused her Facebook page, I was able to put together a little story about what exactly had gone down from her first email to her last.

Teenager sees ad for chaps and wants the chaps, so she emails me about them without asking the Big Kahunas With All the Moola. However, the Big Kahunas, BK for short (must stop thinking about Burger King), closely monitor her web activity and saw she was emailing someone about buying something without consulting them first. They told her she could not have the chaps, enter her emails to me stopping. Then Easter came around and good ole' grandma gave teenager money, so she thought she was going to pull a fast one on parents and use it for the chaps before they realized, even though her money was promised to parents to be used for something else. This is where her plan confuses me, because if her parents monitor her emails, I'm not sure how she thought emailing me again and telling me to call her if the item was still available was going to slide under her parents radar. Your guess is as good as mine, because I don't understand how teenage minds work. Either way, that was her plan, only, when I couldn't call her and emailed her instead, that's when she went off on a rant of teenage proportions and told me I could no longer email her and HAD to call her. I'm going off of her Facebook page, which has painted me this beautiful picture, however, it's left me without certain details, such as how she was planning on meeting me to get the chaps without her parents driving her or knowing, or why she thought they weren't going to see her master plan all over her Facebook page, but that's neither here nor there. The only thing I do get is that she could hide my number under a friend's name and since it was a cell number, her parents couldn't listen in on the conversation like they could monitor emails.

Because I'm the nice person that I am and never do anything like take the side of parents when I think they might like to know that their kid was pulling one over on them, I emailed her back. Yeah, I know, but I still didn't think what she was doing was really all that cute. I very nicely let her know that since she had willfully provided me with her full name, her email address and a phone number, I was easily able to Facebook her and therefore knew her master plan, and that she was barely a teenager and not supposed to even be emailing me about the chaps at all. I told her I thought it was rude and disrespectful to waste my time, and being an adult myself, I wouldn't have put up with her for two seconds once I found out she was pulling something, which is exactly what had happened. Then I told her a little bit about how much I didn't appreciate the language she used with me and what not, and then said hi to her parents and that I trusted they would deal with her. Unnecessary because she was digging her own grave with all those gaping holes in her plans? Most likely, but I just thought her parents would appreciate me laying out exactly what she had tried to pull, that I knew, and that I didn't appreciate it. I've learned it's one thing when kids disrespect their parents, but another when they do it to the parents and another person. So kids, if you're going to try to pull one over on someone trying to honestly sell something, don't swear at them, act suspicious, then give them enough information so that they can look up your Facebook account, and don't put your whole life all over it. It ruins your poorly laid out plan.

But in all of that, I think the funniest thing about all of this is probably the thing that's not going to come out right. As I mentioned, I put the size of the chaps, as well as my own height and weight so that everyone knew what to expect in sizing. This girl was easily seventy five pounds heavier than me. Easily. I say this not to be rude, but because I am not sure how she saw the sizing and still thought she was going to fit in the chaps. They're suede with a zipper, so there's no give in them at all. She had mentioned wanting to try them on to make sure they fit in one of her emails, which is completely normal, but I would have been seriously p-i-s-s-e-d if I took the time to meet with her to find that she either had delusions of grandeur about her size, or didn't read the sizing at all, because I wouldn't have even been able to let her try them on.

People, I just don't get 'em. Can anyone explain them to me? I'll send you homemade fudge if you can. No joke.