Possumblog

And then we woke up!

No noisy television, no fussing offspring. Ahhhh.

First task was to go sell Moby. I’d taken him about three weeks ago to Carmax, and they’d given me a ridiculously insulting offer of only $1200, which, after about three weeks of no interest, had begun to look pretty good--especially considering that insurance was due on it. I’d talked to the guy I had dealt with before, and he noncommittally said to bring it back, even though it was beyond the seven day, guaranteed price threshold.

I knew they weren’t going to offer as much, but you know, three weeks is only three weeks, so how much less could it be!? I got the title and spare keys together and ran out to remove the tag and off we went, with Reba following along in the Focus. Got there and was told my guy was running late. I said I’d wait, but no sooner had the words left my mouth than a nice young man with gang tattoos running all over his body stopped by to say that he was the buddy of the running-late guy, and he’d be happy to work with me.

Or work me over, as the case may be.

Obviously, the previous price was not good now. “Let’s just throw that one in the garbage.” M’kay.

They did the same thing as before, and came back with a price of SEVEN HUNDRED FIFTY DOLLARS! Well, I figured they’d be punitive for my having scorned their original offer, but gee whiz, you’d think I’d said bad things about his tattoos or somethin’! Well, I just said we couldn’t do that and got up to leave, upon which he became very defensive. “Well, it’s been a MONTH and we can’t let YOU come and get the original price or we’d have EVERYONE doing the same thing and…”

“It’s okay. I understand. Don’t worry about it.”

”YOU KNOW, prices change EVERY DAY! And we have to go with what our BUYER says!”

“I know. It’s okay. But if that’s all it’s worth I might as well just keep it.”

He followed us out, being all defensive and everything the entire way. Apparently, they get a lot of people who come by and are dissatisfied with the price they give, and just can’t believe that no matter what their kind and genial public relations department says, deep down they are just a bunch of thieving car salesmen. Imagine!

ANYway, so Moby remains in the family for a while longer. He’s still for sale, but he’s too good to give away. Unless I can take him off on my taxes. In which case he might go to the charity place. The ad’s still running, though, so if anyone can come up with some cash, he’s yours.

Home then to drop him off, and then off to have some lunch (I wish I could remember where, because it was good) and then we stopped back by the antique store in Trussville.

Quite an odd place--it was a nursing home. A couple of ladies bought the place and turned it into an antiques mall with a café. Reba’s been in there before, but I’ve always been resistant to the idea because I figured it would still smell like a nursing home. BUT, since we didn’t have anything to do and since they have a little farmer’s market on Saturdays, we stopped in. First, bought some cukes and squash and 'maters, then went inside.

Well, I was impressed, and that’s hard to do. It didn’t smell bad at all, and was nice and relatively clean, and HUGE. It’s very deceiving from the outside, but this place is big. The wares were okay as well. It’s not the fine antiques sort of place, but it’s not pawed-over junk, either. Mostly. A wide selection of stuff, including several paper ephemera dealers. I love looking at old magazines and ads. Picked up a LOOK from 1972--hey, platform shoes are groovy, man! We stayed there forever looking at stuff, although we didn’t get anything--the house is already full of stuff that belongs in a lower-line suburban antiques mall.

On to get the kids, then back home to get ready for SUNDAY!

Posted by Terry Oglesby at July 11, 2005 01:33 PM