The CraigsList Fairies Sprinkle Their Magic Dust
July 2nd, 2007
For weeks and weeks, I’ve had little bites on the hodgepodge of items I’ve been posting (and re-posting) on CraigsList. But there’s been nothing substantial to report. A few minor sales, a couple of snippy comments on our pricing. But mostly just tepid emails of interest, followed by painfully long stretches of silence.
So this past weekend, in the hopes of reinvigorating the online sales, I schlepped to my parents’ place in New Jersey. My sister and I snapped pictures and posted a bunch of the items that have been piling up, to my father’s dismay, in their basement. The poor guy. Here, his kids are all grown up and finally out of the house, mercifully taking the last of their college-era boxes with them. Here, he’s finally slowed his plumbing business and the stream of bulky supplies that for more than 30 years came with it. At last, the basement was starting to clear.
Then I all had to go and decide to volunteer in India, and temporarily get into the junk-selling business to get myself there.
“Boxes here. Boxes there. Boxes everywhere,” he said. “I want that cellar cleaned up. I’m tired of looking at these boxes.”
I swear the CraigsList fairies were listening. Because no sooner he said that than the emails started to stream in. Seriously – over Sunday night and this morning, multiple inquires about various household stuffs and the vintage rattan patio furniture that’s collected dust in my parents’ basement for years. (We got two emails on that one less than an hour after posting. That never happens). Then? A slick, brand new Cajun cookbook from my mom’s friend — snapped up! A circa 1970s Kodak camera — sold! I don’t want to jinx it, but I bet we’ll have a handful of sales by tomorrow.
“Wait a minute. A camera?” my dad asked. “Which camera you sold? My camera?”
I got worried. Did nobody run it by the man before we up a decided to hock his camera? My mother described it to him. “The instamatic,” she said. “The one we bought when we went to Niagra Falls.” The one, I wanted to say, that’s been sitting in the back of your closet for a good 15 years.
“Oh! That camera,” he said. I relaxed when I saw him ease back in his chair. “Okay. Good. For how much?”
Twenty dollars, I told him. He nodded his head.
“That’s what I paid,” he laughed.
