Craigslist retired nut jobs

[MeanOldLady]

@SmellMyWort

Maybe you need to improve the descriptions of the shit you’re selling, or better yet, include a picture. Save yourself some hassle.

Doesn’t matter. There will always be some asshole who wants to chat about it. I swear to gods I sold a mini-fridge, included photos of it both open and closed, listed the measurements, brand name, price and contact info, and people still wanted to know if I took a piss before I went to bed every night. Look, buy the goddamn fridge or not. There really isn’t much to talk about.

[Prelude_to_Fascination]

@MeanOldLady

Now, my story begins in nineteen-dickety-two. We had to say “dickety” 'cause the Kaiser had stolen our word “twenty.”

Both this and Malthus’s story had me rolling. I needed that.

[BrainGlutton]

New phenomenon? No.

“They like talking to salesmen!”

– Glengarry/Glen Ross

[BrainGlutton]

See also George Orwell’s “Bookshop Memories” (1936).

Many of the people who came to us were of the kind who would be a nuisance anywhere but have special opportunities in a bookshop. For example, the dear old lady who ‘wants a book for an invalid’ (a very common demand, that), and the other dear old lady who read such a nice book in 1897 and wonders whether you can find her a copy. Unfortunately she doesn’t remember the title or the author’s name or what the book was about, but she does remember that it had a red cover. But apart from these there are two well-known types of pest by whom every second-hand bookshop is haunted. One is the decayed person smelling of old bread-crusts who comes every day, sometimes several times a day, and tries to sell you worthless books. The other is the person who orders large quantities of books for which he has not the smallest intention of paying. In our shop we sold nothing on credit, but we would put books aside, or order them if necessary, for people who arranged to fetch them away later. Scarcely half the people who ordered books from us ever came back. It used to puzzle me at first. What made them do it? They would come in and demand some rare and expensive book, would make us promise over and over again to keep it for them, and then would vanish never to return. But many of them, of course, were unmistakable paranoiacs. They used to talk in a grandiose manner about themselves and tell the most ingenious stories to explain how they had happened to come out of doors without any money–stories which, in many cases, I am sure they themselves believed. In a town like London there are always plenty of not quite certifiable lunatics walking the streets, and they tend to gravitate towards bookshops, because a bookshop is one of the few places where you can hang about for a long time without spending any money. In the end one gets to know these people almost at a glance. For all their big talk there is something moth-eaten and aimless about them. Very often, when we were dealing with an obvious paranoiac, we would put aside the books he asked for and then put them back on the shelves the moment he had gone. None of them, I noticed, ever attempted to take books away without paying for them; merely to order them was enough–it gave them, I suppose, the illusion that they were spending real money.

[Cartooniverse]

@MeanOldLady

Now, my story begins in nineteen-dickety-two. We had to say “dickety” 'cause the Kaiser had stolen our word “twenty.”

The man who smelled like saurkraut next to me on the ferry set down his ancient American Tourister then left it there when he departed. I took it with me since it was just the size of the kind of bag I was looking for, but when I opened it up, loose coffee spilled out and with it were these little bags of powdered sugar. Sure was a real mess, especially since the bags kept breaking and every time I licked my fingers my tallywhacker got all happy. Boy, that was a day. Now, where were we?

[Bryan_Ekers]

Sugar packs, huh? That’s where I learned Charles Lindbergh flew the Wright Brothers’ plane at Kitty Hawk in 1903, fifteen miles on a thimbleful of corn oil. Singlehandedly won us the Civil War, it did.

[Rhythmdvl]

@Westrogothia

I tried the “stare intently at his left air and swat an imaginary fly” at the psychologist during my concription evaluation to quickly end that discussion.

It would have been easier to just tell him that he could get anything he wanted at Alice’s Restaurant.

[sinjin]

@SmellMyWort

Maybe you need to improve the descriptions of the shit you’re selling, or better yet, include a picture. Save yourself some hassle.

I always include at least one picture of the shit I’m selling, no matter how inexpensive. And they’re good pictures too. Several people who actually bought some of the shit I’m selling have told me my pictures are the best they’ve seen on craigslist.

[armedmonkey]

@MeanOldLady

Doesn’t matter. There will always be some asshole who wants to chat about it. I swear to gods I sold a mini-fridge, included photos of it both open and closed, listed the measurements, brand name, price and contact info, and people still wanted to know if I took a piss before I went to bed every night. Look, buy the goddamn fridge or not. There really isn’t much to talk about.

Did you take a piss IN the mini-fridge? 'Cause that would be a deal breaker for most buyers. Then again, it is Craig’s List, so it might be a value added feature to some people.

[fluiddruid]

@sinjin

Called me 5 times about the item I was selling, the last to tell me they were stopping at a fast food restaurant on the way over. Why?

In a book, this is called “foreshadowing”.

I screen people from Craigslist because of people wasting my time. Most of the time, the stuff is free, and people still want me to sell them on taking it. No. Take it or GTFO.

I automatically write a person off if any of the following occurs:

1 - They ask questions that are already explained in the ad

2 - They ask questions no reasonable person would ask, e.g. “What do you think I could sell your free couch for?”

3 - They tell you lots of details about their life that don’t matter (not small talk when they’re coming to get it, more like in the original email)

4 - They send an email saying only “Do you still have it?” when the ad posted 2 minutes ago

5 - They tell you all about how they are a veteran/disabled/poor/hard-done-to/lonely for no particular reason that has relevance to their purchase

6 - They need more than one phone call to decide if they want it or want to come see it

7 - They offer you something stupid for it, e.g. a barter item that is worth practically nothing, or 10% of the stated price

8 - They can’t come see it in a reasonable timeframe (a couple days)

9 - They want to take it and pay for it later

10 - They want you to bring this heavy, awkward-to-move, free item to their house to show it to them so they can see if they want it

11 - They offer you X amount “because that is all the money I have”. This person will show up with X minus 20%+ dollars “because this is all the money I have.”

12 - Any other things they say that be freaky

See, in real life, I am sort of a soft, marshmallowy-type creature. I am not confrontational, and I dislike conflict. However, Craigslist idiots provoke even me. So when some 70 year old guy comes by to complain about the quality of my free cardboard moving boxes, they cannot expect a civil response. And they did not get one.

[Greg_Charles]

For free stuff, a friend of mine just puts the address and says the stuff will be in the driveway. No contact information. That strikes me as brilliant. In the few times I’ve given away things, I always get calls from people that ask if I can just hold it until they get there. “Please, please, please? I love it. It’s exactly what I need.” Then they never show up.

[MeanOldLady]

@A Monkey With a Gun

Did you take a piss IN the mini-fridge? 'Cause that would be a deal breaker for most buyers. Then again, it is Craig’s List, so it might be a value added feature to some people.

Not very often, no.

[thirdname]

@Greg_Charles

For free stuff, a friend of mine just puts the address and says the stuff will be in the driveway. No contact information. That strikes me as brilliant. In the few times I’ve given away things, I always get calls from people that ask if I can just hold it until they get there. “Please, please, please? I love it. It’s exactly what I need.” Then they never show up.

Yeah, but when you do that you get a bunch of people wasting gas trying to all come and get the same item.

[dropzone]

@thirdname

Yeah, but when you do that you get a bunch of people wasting gas trying to all come and get the same item.

So you skip the ad and put it out with a sign saying “free” and it will be gone in a couple hours.

[Slithy_Tove]

@A Monkey With a Gun

Did you take a piss IN the mini-fridge? 'Cause that would be a deal breaker for most buyers. Then again, it is Craig’s List, so it might be a value added feature to some people.

If it’s a dorm refrigerator there’s a good chance somebody pushed his ass in it and farted, quick shut the door and waited to see the look on his roomie’s face when he opened it later.

[dropzone]

I normally go to the DMV on Saturdays, when normal working folk go. Not being one of them at the moment, the other Thursday I went in. I know I can go off on a Grandpa Simpson tangent as well as anyone, but the tangents were the least of these people’s problems. It’s scary that the clerks can’t say, “Pops, you are so slow and confused I have to take you off the road. You have no business driving around other people.”

[kaylasdad99]

@sinjin

I always include at least one picture of the shit I’m selling, no matter how inexpensive. And they’re good pictures too. Several people who actually bought some of the shit I’m selling have told me my pictures are the best they’ve seen on craigslist.

There’s your solution, then. Start pulling out pics of things you’ve posted on CL, and see if you can bore them enough to flee…

[Lynn_Bodoni]

@dropzone

I normally go to the DMV on Saturdays, when normal working folk go. Not being one of them at the moment, the other Thursday I went in. I know I can go off on a Grandpa Simpson tangent as well as anyone, but the tangents were the least of these people’s problems. It’s scary that the clerks can’t say, “Pops, you are so slow and confused I have to take you off the road. You have no business driving around other people.”

This. OK, maybe the clerks shouldn’t have the complete power to refuse to renew a license, but they should have the power to at least force Pops or Moms to get evaluated. My grandmother didn’t want to give up her license, neither did either of my parents. In all three cases, they had other medical issues that forced them to give up driving. But it was scary, the way my father would head on down for a leisurely drive to the WalMart 20 miles away. He couldn’t see or hear, and even if he DID notice something wrong, his reaction time can be measured in minutes, not seconds.

I’ve seen this in other people, too. In the US, driving is the ONLY way to get around in many areas. We have shitty public transportation, when we have public transportation at all.

[dropzone]

And then the people who should use it can’t figure it out.

ETA: My great uncle still drove when he was 93. I didn’t know him then (I’d moved away), but I knew him when he was 73 and he was borderline then.

[Maastricht]

If I don’t have time, I say so. But quite often I try and steer the conversation in some direction that I find interesting too. Like places they take their grandkid (and I can take my kid). Or the history of the neighbourhood.