Cheapskate Monthly

Ah, last Sunday was again fleamarket day. I decided before I got there that I was going to stick to my guns...no just giving shit away to placate a cheap-ass.

Had a beautiful McCoy pot, had no less than 5 people ask how much, and then walk away after being told $5. Lady asks me, again I say $5. She not only whips out the 5, she proceeds to buy several more things and leaves happy.

Sold nearly EVERYTHING. Went around the fleamarket and "shopped" for a few minutes, came up with a styling Cheerilee pony, a Coach purse, a Vera Bradley purse, an entire set of Harker dishes. Spent $30, left with my original $30 plus another $20. The guy next to us drove off, leaving a smoker, a deck sprayer, 3 pieces of furniture and several other random items. Charley jacks the smoker and sprayer right off. Then people file by and keep asking about the stuff on the table.

At first, we tell them the people drove off. Some of the stuff gets carted off. A family wants one of the desks, and asks us to watch it for them, it's getting late, and we're beat...the people have not come back and it's been almost an hour. Charley says to me "Fuck it. The next person that asks about that thing, I am gonna sell it to them" I say whatever. A couple asks how much is the desk? Charley says make an offer...the guy hands him $24, and we hightail it outta there...lol.

We are driving down the road, and Charley starts having a shit-fit because he just saw a giant-ass bag of packing peanuts on the roadside marked "free". Because he has crammed the smoker and the sprayer in the car, we don't have much room. We shift some crap around and cram the giant bag into the backseat as far as it will go. We drive home with Charley's face on the dashboard, with a box of whoopie cushions in his lap, and our ill-gotten gains crammed all around us.

The only blip on my day was when he kept the entire $24 from the desk...I sat there for 45 minutes babysitting the fuckin' thing too. That, on top of yet again paying for the table, rather pissed me off. He should at least take the $27 off what I owe him, which would make it like $48, but I am sure he'll conveniently "forget" when the time comes. Ass.

Another Day Another Dollar General

Ugh. This weekend is fleamarket time again. I sit here thinking over prices and then "customer" reactions. Last time I asked $5 each for full length bib aprons that, I might add, I could have sold for $15-$20 each on ebay. I had a snotty older woman ask me the price, I told her "$5 each, but I'll go $3". She says "I was thinking more like $1". I wanted to shove them up her candy-arse.

I just smiled and refused to back down, and she sniffed and trotted away. I later sold a few for $3 each. Do these people think about the fact that these items were originally either made, which took material which cost money, and time to make, or they were purchased by the present owner, which cost money to buy and also takes time, seeing as I usually wash, starch and iron my linens?

Nope. They don't.  When I shop at the fleamarket I don't ever ask someone to lower their price, they have a reason for whatever they are asking. I feel like it's shitty and insulting to ask someone who is asking $3 for a $25 item to lower it to a dollar. You're already getting a bargain, why push it?

Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap

Uggg. Another day at the fleamarket. People are so damned cheap and/or destructive. First, we go to set up and are immediately inundated with "Do you have _____?"

I put out several chenille bedspreads, and they swoop in. I price them at $5 each...very reasonable, even for a cutter. The first woman does not question me, she buys 2 at asking price.

Later, a woman looks over a full sized heavier one, and ponders a minute before asking "Will you take $3?" I sigh and agree. This leaves me with 2 left. One is a pink "cutter"...I am dealing with a paying customer, and a woman loudly yells "Hey! How much is this?!" pointing at the cutter. I say $2, she asks if I will take $1. I am fed up. I just say no, and she walks away. Jesus, screw you, lady. There's $15 worth of fabric. I am just going to cut the bastard up into 12 inch sqaures, and sell it on ebay for that. Fuck it. Lazy cheap asses.

Each week we price things with large signs "Scarves: 50 cents", "Books: 50 cents", "Fabric: $1 a bag" and each week we get "How much do you want for_____?" and then the inevitable hiss of breath and walk away. I feel like yelling after them "It's 50 FUCKIN' CENTS! what more do you want?"

They paw over things, dropping them on the ground, and trampling them, and then just leaving them there. Today some woman broke one of Charley's perfume bottles and just left it there. A few weeks back I was asking $1 each for tablecloths, and a woman walked off with 3 of them.

Last week a guy saw my 1940's pin-up postcards sitting in a basket I set aside for them. I had them marked $1 each. There were 33 of them. he asks me "Would you take $5 for all of them?" I wanted to ask him where he got his drugs from. I flat out told him no, and counted them in front of him, and told him they were $1 each...he poked around the table, grabbed a few other things, and asked me if I would take $20 for them. That was reasonable. I agreed.

This week, a man asked me how much my 1 gallon ziplock bags were...I was actually bagging cloth in them in front of him and he asked this and he was serious. I gave him a WTF? look and told them they were mine.

A lady came by and rifled thru my scarves and then asked how much the entire basket was. I told her "I don't know, I haven't counted what's left" So I went and counted them...24. And told her $10 for all of them. She sniffed and then just bought 2 or 3. Later on I restocked the basket with like 20 more scarves and then me and Boss went and looked around, leaving the table to Charley's devices. Bad idea.

I look around and say "Where's my basket?" He's like I sold it? I start panicking "For how much?" He says "Ten bucks" I am like in my mind "YOU FUCKING MORON!!!"

I calmly tell him that I had restocked the goddamned basket and the $10 price I quoted for the earlier lady was for 24 scarves in the basket...not the basket itself! Fuckin' A! This, on top of him sticking me with the entire table fee, has left a bad taste in my mouth about doing this anymore.

Honey Badger Don't Care

My mother has started getting on my nerves. She decided to start doing ebay, and as a result, every fuckin' little thing has to come across my doorstep..."_______ happened, what do I do?" She expects me to drop everything and help her, and she's like "Well, I work, I don't have time for that"

Today I have to pack 4 boxes and ship them out, photograph at least a dozen things, write descriptions and list them. Yesterday I got up at the asscrack of dawn, set up at the fleamarket, sat there in the hot sun for 6 hours for $100, got home, cleaned half a dozen filthy Dawn and Barbie dolls, then later that night spent 2 1/2 hours identifying them and their clothes, while fending off a 3 year old.

Saturday, I sorted and cleaned things from Fridays auction, again, while fending off a 3 year old, then went to another auction. Friday, took my mother-in-law grocery shopping 25 miles away, then went directly to the box lot auction.

I DON'T HAVE ANY DOWN TIME. None. I cannot get away from my work because it's all around me. I am sick of people expecting me to do shit for them, and with them because I "don't work".

Happy Fuckin' Anniversary

I had to create a new ebay account the other day because my main account has been downgraded to subpar status according to them. I apparently need to be on call 24/7 for some idiot who has paid $3.00 for a used toy in case they want me to suck out their asscrack for them or something. Because of my downgrade they will only allow me to sell 13 items a month...I gotta live off this income! So I create the aforementioned new account.

I log into said new account, type out an entire auction description and upload a picture, and then it tells me in order to continue I must add a credit card to my paypal account. I don't have one.

Fucking A. There goes another half-hour of my life. More red tape from ebay.

Somebody Caught The Stupid

Well, this has been an epicly rotten week thanks to my old pal...eBay. First I sell an Argentine Alitas pony. This pony had brittle wings which fell off in the original package before I bought her. I glued them back on, and when I did, it made a mess. I described this in my auction and take 3 detailed pictures of said damage. This pony has remained on a shelf since I bought her, untouched for 6 or 7 years.

I pack up the pony in a hard plastic wipe box within a hard cardboard tube to prevent her getting crushed and causing further damage to the wings. I include the original back card.

A couple of days later I get a whiny e-mail from the buyer saying that the pony's wing has been damaged by an 1/8" piece of scotch tape I put on it to hold it in place. She also says the pony has a haircut and a black mark on the leg. This is BS and I know it. I made sure the bastard was clean when I shipped it, and there's no way it has a haircut...I was the one to remove it from the original packaging. Argentine Alitas have very short hair compared to Hong Kong/China Windy Wings. Obviously, she did not know this. 

She also accuses me of doing a terrible job packing it.

I get the pony back yesterday. It is wrapped in a shit ton of toilet paper, wrapped up further in tissue paper and the so-called damaged wing (broken off by now because of her crappy handling) looks exactly like it did when I took the pictures for the auction...i.e. no damage from tape, just like I thought. As I've established there is NO haircut and the "black mark" on the leg...it's not there. 

So, the fucking bitch basically had buyer's remorse and went on the offensive attacking me to put up a smoke screen for her real motive. This cost me $114 and has now fucked up my bill situation for the month.

Epilogue, 9/29/11:
I send the bitch her refund of all the money, even though she has not sent me the backcard and she has the nerve to message me bitching that she checked her paypal account and there was no balance and that she will be contacting paypal. Fuck her. I sent her an e-check on purpose because she's such a bitch. Go ahead and contact paypal, you bitchy twat. I am so tempted to stop payment, to wipe my ass with that TP she wrapped the pony in, and send the cash to her wrapped in it...

Cheapers Creepers

This post is not really about ebay much per se, but since it does delve into cheapos who want stellar service for nothing, I added it.

Went to the local fleamarket this weekend with ass. This time due to astronomical ebay fees and lack of cash, we decided to sell there. We set up and open this cookie tin with his grandmother's old costume jewelry in it. A woman comes up and whips out a small loupe and starts examining one piece closely. She snottily asks the price and since she is a bitch, I answer "$3". She snaps, "There's stones missing, that's all it's worth" and stalks away. Another woman comes a few minutes later, picks the same piece up and it's obvious that she is in love with it. She asks the price; I say "25 cents".

I also have an old Uncle Sam cast iron reproduction bank, and a Pfaltzgraff bean pot missing the lid. I ask $10 for Uncle Sam and $1 for the bean pot(later, I lower the price on the bank to $5). I have people whining that Uncle Sam has no plug on the bottom (a 50 cent rubber plug can be bought at Wally) and that the bean pot has no lid. This cracks me up. It's a fleamarket, if someone is selling there, they generally are getting rid of crap they cannot use, or things that maybe aren't going to be perfect, things that need a little TLC. You're not going to find a perfect antique Uncle Sam bank for $5, nor are you going to find a perfect-condition-with-lid 40 year old Pfaltzgraff bean pot for a $1. They expect mint condition antiques for bargain bin prices...and I thought ebay buyers were bad.