getting rid of shit

This week I've been focusing on getting rid of things that I don't really need. I used craigslist to sell some things which kind of sucks because people are so fucking stupid and rude. I've yet to have someone turn up at the time they said they would come (if I was waiting 30 minutes, I understand - of 4 people who came by one was an hour late, two were over two hours late, and my fourth person is headed for the record at 3 hours late, if he shows up).

 I would add that as a person who isn't very big I feel much more comfortable with people coming by during the day than the evening. I am not too happy about strange guys wanting to come by my house at 830 or 9 o'clock at night. I've taken to carrying my mag flashlight into the garage (most of what I'm selling is in the garage) just in case.

And I get the dumbest questions. For skis listed as "women's volkl queen attiva blah blah skis" I received 5 emails (I'm not kidding) with the question "are these skis for women?" No, I just listed them as women's skis to fuck with you, and I guess "queen attiva" didn't clue you in that they are women's skis and apparently you've never heard of google so you could look them up and find out in case you doubted me.

I won't even mention the email from a person asking if my 22 foot ladder could be extended to 23 feet. Yeah I will, because that was the stupidest thing ever.

I will say though that once the people did show up they always had a good story about why they were buying something. Maybe made up, maybe not. The guy who bought my ladder needed it to fix a problem with his roof due to all the snow we've had and he just bought his house so he couldn't afford a new ladder (nod to that). The guy who bought my cruiser got it for his mom. He's worried she isn't exercising enough.

And the woman who bought a ski set I listed (it was my original skis, boots, and poles from when I first moved here - I listed the set for $20) got it because her daughter gets a  free ski pass through school and she wants to ski with her daughter. She works with the school system and her husband works with the homeless so they have no money (but 4 kids). She said my listing was a christmas miracle to her and she gave me a big hug after we closed the deal. I actually felt bad charging her so I told her she could have everything for free but she insisted on paying me. I am going to donate the money back to her school.

She brought her daughter Katie with her, who I would guess is around 8. Katie walked into my house and said "I love this house! This is what my house would look like!" so of course I liked her immediately. She asked me questions about my pictures and shark teeth and nesting doll while her mom tried on the ski boots. Then she buried her nose in a book while her mom and I talked about boring adult stuff. Kind of reminded me of myself...

Then today I took some jewelry in to get rid of it (wedding ring, wedding earrings, etc) and the guy at the jeweler's took a shine to me because I am, to quote him, the first woman to come into his store and show more interest in his crystals and fossils than the jewelry.

After we completed the transaction he brought me into the back of the store and showed me, among other treasures he's found, a femur from a huge dinosaur, a vertebrae from a huge dinosaur (he dropped it a year ago and showed me the inside, it was crystallized and looked like gemstones, very cool), a dinosaur tooth (I said I would guess the tooth belonged to a meat eater based on my knowledge of shark teeth and he said I was right), and a very cool square rock with an entire fish fossil in it. BTW, he talked to a guy at the museum of natural science (who's also a client) and he said to store fossils in tupperware with a cup of water and a towel over the fossils to keep them from decaying.

Then he said I should stop by the store any time so he could show me the new things he's found (I walk by his store almost every day). He and his wife just bought 40 acres of land in southern colorado and they are finding all kinds of things. Also, his kids just got him a state of the art drone so he will find even more stuff (we talked about search grids, it was fun).

Planning a few little adventures for new year's eve tomorrow...