Going, Going, Gone

Recently, my wife and I emerged from a renovation at our house and we’re now confronted by all the stuff we kept over the course of twenty years but wish we hadn’t. (If that in any way reminds you of certain Lume full body deodorant commercial tag lines, don’t even go there. I repeat, do not even think about those commercials.)

Instead, listen to “Drugs In My Pocket”, a 1979 song by The Monks. If you were a teenager in the late 1970’s and already know this song, its lyrics and its cadence, I still think you should listen to it anyway. (BTW, if you ever listened to the Strawbs band-initially known as The Strawberry Hill Boys back in 1964 -you might be interested to know that three of the Strawbs went on to start The Monks.)

I couldn’t help it. That song just popped into my head when I sat down to write about getting rid of all our old stuff:

You gotta love those British bands. In homage to The Monks, I wrote this:

“We got this stuff in our closets; we don’t know what to do with it
We’ve got this stuff in our closets. Are we really through with it?

I mean we ask ourselves, do we really need, to be permanently trapped?
And stay awake for hours, cleaning up this crap?
Cuz we got stuff in our closets and we don’t know what to do with it
(Stuff in our closets. Stuff in our closets.)
Yah! We got this stuff in our closets and we’ve worn out our use for it. We’ve got stuff in our closets and we really must get loose from it. (Stuff in our closets. Stuff in our closets.)

They say it turns us crazy, they say it makes us sick
To us it’s all the same, cuz we’re too bleedin’ thick,
Cuz we got stuff in our closets and we don’t know what to do with it.
(Stuff in our closets. Stuff in our closets.)”

I could’ve gone on but to be honest, I think you get the point. I also note that the phrase, “to be honest,” is cropping up a lot these days. I don’t know why. I’m pretty darned sure it’s not used by the politicians in Ottawa very much, though. (If you’re in the U.S., substitute D.C. for Ottawa.)

OK, enough about ancient British pop punk/new wave/progressive bands. While we’re on the topic of household purges, we should talk about on-line marketing sites. Here’s my take on Facebook Marketplace:

I found Marketplace worked well for selling higher-priced items such as a complete set of kitchen cabinets, a range/oven, a small breeder reactor, an entire family of endangered Burrowing Owls, a high end screen door, a kitchen vent hood, an armoire wardrobe, bookshelves and a ground-penetrating radar array: all this with little or no haggling and no ghosting or no-shows. In fact, a couple of people told me I should have charged more for these items. (I’m not kidding.) Now I know how the Russians felt after they sold Alaska in 1866 for a few million bucks.

To be honest, it was the lower-priced items that gave me all the grief. Here’s a typical Messenger exchange over something priced at $30 -substantially less than the initial listing.

Buyer: What’s your lowest price?

Me: $30

Buyer: Will you take less?

Me: No.

Buyer: Will you take $20?

Me: No and to be honest, what part of “no” didn’t you understand?

Buyer: Will you take an e-transfer?

Me: No. What part of “cash only” in the listing didn’t you understand?

Buyer: How about $15?

Me: No. No: a thousand times, No!!

Buyer: I have an idea! What if you pay me $15 to take this off your hands?

Me: Sigh…Sure. Why not?

Buyer: That’s great! Where do you live?

Me: I live in Alaska.

It took me forever to write this post. I don’t know why. But I do know that The Monks is a much better name for a band. The Strawberry Hill Boys sounded more like a gang of train robbers.

To be perfectly honest.