Smartassery

Let me start by saying that I loooooooove Craigslist. It’s the virtual hangout of the community! A place where I’ve found all my apartments, jobs, things to do during the weekend, tacky and duct-taped (but free!) furniture, friends, and on and on. My only pet peeve with it is when I try to sell some stuff.

Like bicycles.

Over the past four years or so, I’ve sold off a lot of two-wheelers and assorted parts my husband has collected over his stint as a bicycle messenger mainly because if I didn’t, every square inch of my house would be covered in grease and I would be full of concussions.

A lot of buyers have actually been “normal”, but most are the cat’s pajamas. So here are my inspiring rants against these pinheads:

1. If you make an appointment to come by, either keep it or call ahead to cancel it. I won’t get mad, shit happens. I will be furious though if I just rearranged my Saturday morning to be at home waiting for you only to realize by 1:00pm that I’ve been stood up. Brings back bad memories.   

2. ‘Local pickup only’ means you come over to my place, not vice versa. It also doesn’t mean ‘pickup in the parking lot of a shopping center in the Tenderloin.’ This is not a hostage exchange.

3. In a like vein, ‘local pickup only’ doesn’t mean I’m going to drive over and give you a ride to my place and then give you *and* the awesome but heavy and totally non-collapsible mountain bike you just bought from me a ride back to your place. It does mean that you have to get your hinny over to my place, get your new tinker toy out of my life forever, and then go away (nothing personal, but you know what I mean).

4. ‘Cash only’ doesn’t mean ‘dime bag’ or ‘personal check.’ If I wanted you to pay me in weed, I would have written ‘weed only’ in the ad there, Beavis. And accepting a personal check from a stranger…do I look 12? 

5. No, you can’t take the ’99 Lemond Buenos Aires Track Bike today and come by with the cash tomorrow. I have one better…why don’t we make a movie called ‘The Heist’ and I’ll be the character known as ‘The Mark’? 

6. I listed my phone number in the ad for a reason. It’s a helluva lot quicker for both of us that sending and replying to e-mails.  Do you think I sit in front of my computer for the better part of the day? 

7. We will not be haggling over the price of a brand new Campagnolo bottom bracket (as stressed in my ad)- either you buy it or you don’t. I really don’t care if you are trying to make rent or make an upgrade from the Ramen noodles this month. Not my problem. Oh, and before you ask, I’m not giving you a ride.

8. Since used gear is sold under the tacit assumption of ‘As Is, no warranty,’ no, I’m not going to sign a document *handwritten by you* swearing that the tandem you just bought from me for thirty bucks it’s a genuine Cannondale and won’t fall apart within the next two years, you troll.

9. If you just want to come over, hang out, and try to impress me with your vast sea of knowledge about this particular brand of bike, while clearly not interested in making a purchase, don’t bother. I just want to sell this hunk of metal.  

10. The ad said ’I'm selling a bike’ not ‘Free Fixie Instruction and Repair Workshop.’ Which means that you are most definitely NOT welcome to come by with *your* bike and have me teach you how to ride it or pick my brain as to the possible reasons your gear is not turning.  If you don’t know what a fixie is, don’t answer the ad. It’ll save you some teeth in the long run.

Moreover…

11. No, you can’t have something to eat!

And…

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 25th, 2006 at 1:35 am and is filed under rants. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.