Taking Care of Business (with Rednecks)

Most of you know that I am a big fan of the website Craigslist.org. I find a lot of very useful things there and have also been able to make some good sales through it. Since my current lease ends tomorrow, the last week has been very active between the personals website and I. One of the item I was trying to move was my parents old leather couch. 

Bought for around $2,000 in 1989 this couch has put in many years of good service to my family. It is also one of the things my friends remember most about my old house. several of my friends, my brothers friends and my sisters friends have spent hours on that couch watching movies and sleeping (as a fun fact: even Hollywood movie star Josh Hartnett had slept on that couch... A fact I chose not to advertise because I thought it would be tacky. Now I am wishing I had spread that to the world.)  It is amazingly comfortable if not a little worn at this point. Although most of the 5 sections were in good shape one of the sections was completely shredded. I figured this and it's age put it's value right around $150. I was wrong.

After about a week of receiving e-mails about the couch and replying with pictures of the couch and it's damage with no buyers I was running out of time. I told Chewy and Frenchie that I was selling the couch, news which was not taken well. Frenchie even told her parents to buy it so it could stay "in the family." Unfortunately that did not come to pass and I had to re-post the couch to Craigslist for $75. At this price I finally had a buyer.

A woman from somewhere up in the boonies told me she would indeed pick the couch up and give me $75 for it. She said she would pick it up on Friday at about 8 P.M. Although this was a little late in the day for me I agreed because I had to be completely moved out of the house on Sunday at noon. So time passes and on Friday at 7:30 PM I give her a call to see if she is still coming. She tells me she is running a bit late and asks if it is ok if I meet her at my house at 10 P.M. I find this 2 hour time difference ridiculous and refuse, telling her to pick the couch up sometime Saturday (part of me was thinking they were just trying to meet me as late as possible so that they could murder me and steal my things.)

On Saturday morning she calls me and tells me she will meet me at my house around 6 PM. I was already going to be there to clean so I don't have a problem with this, but I do ask her just to make sure "Now when you say 6 you do mean six don't you?" She assures me she won't be late. At 5:45 she has yet to call me so I call her. She says she is running behind (not a big surprise I guess) and she will be there in about an hour. At this point I am very irked. Because my house is completely cleaned out I have nothing to do for the extra hour... I sit on my phone and play tetris. An hour later I call again... and again they are an hour out... very upsetting. 

Eventually they do show up and it is like redneck Christmas. The woman I had been talking to looked like she may have been hot in 1982. Now she had leathery orange skin, hair so fried from bleaching I could have used it as a Brillo pad and huge growths on her face. Her boyfriend (brought along to be the muscle) had a pretty hard core mullet and a shirt that read "Harley Davidson: Lone Wolf" and had a picture of a wolf on it.* Long story short, you could tell these people had lived hard. 

*As a side note: I find and clothing with photography of animals on it to be completely ridiculous. It is one of those things that is kinda funny if someone is wearing it ironically but unbelievably sad in every other scenario. Wolves are the animal I see on clothes the most... making them the most sad. Dragons are a close second.

I helped them move all the stuff out but did not help them put it in their truck. Their trailer was rickety and looked like it would fall apart. I was also doubtful it could even fit the whole couch. I did not want to struggle with the headache of how to get it all in, nor did I want to incur legal liability for it falling off the back of the trailer so I left it to my new redneck friends to figure out. After giving them the couch the woman pulls out $67... hands the crumpled wad of bills to me and asks "is this ok?" 

Although the agreed upon price was $75, at this point I was just so sick of these people I would have let them take the couch for free just to be done. I did however say "well I would like the $75 if you have it..." At this the redneck woman pulls out another 37 cents and puts them in my hand. Her boyfriend pulls out a shit load of quarters and gives them to me "that could be around 5 bucks in quarters right there, man... enjoy'em brother." This is why I hate doing business with rednecks.

Wanderlust

It's coming... I leave on Tuesday for my European adventure. Here is the itinerary (I think.) 

Dublin

Brussels

Amsterdam

London

Paris

Berlin

Madrid

Barcelona

Rome

Prague

Greece

hopefully I will be able to update for every city to keep you all aware of the goings on.

Buckle up your seat belts

Frosting...

It is strange to think about the memories that stick with you. Everyday thousands of things happen to us that we forget or never even notice but sometimes the most trivial of events can stay with us for years. For example, I can still vividly remember an argument i had in 5th grade with a classmate about whether Minnesota or Maine was the northernmost state. 

The memory has been around for years: When I was about 16 I remember helping my mother put away the groceries. My mother was not the type to bake cupcakes pies or cakes... so it was irregular to have those supplies around. On this particular trip to the store however my mother had purchased some chocolate icing. Because it was a foreign item in our kitchen I turned to ask my mother where to put it.

I turned around and asked "hey mom, whe---"

"DON'T EAT IT!" she screamed at me. 

There are a couple of funny things about this scenario. First of all, although I am a bit overweight I certainly would not resort to eating just chocolate frosting out of the jar without anything on it. Secondly, she yelled it with such a sense of urgency I think she suspected I would rip to top off the jar and shove the entire contents into my mouth at once. It was a bizarre feeling. 

The Better School: Maryland or Northwood? You be the judge.

For those of you who follow collegiate mock trial you know that every year after the championship round the school that wins get the traveling trophy. It is their responsibility to inscribe not only their own name... but also the name of the school they beat to win the championship. For the last 2 years The George Washington University has finished runner up; first to Maryland and then to Northwood. this picture was taken of the trophy before the championship round next year: 

In case you can't see it the inscription says "Runner-Up: The Georgia Washington University"

You can  say whatever you want to about the school rankings by various sources... in my mind the only thing Northwood has to do to prove itself Maryland's scholastic superior is learn to spell George.