Goodreads Bookshelf
The End of an Error
Just over 21 months ago, I made one of my worst purchases in a good long while. I suckered myself into it, really. I had gotten this free bar and weights when my old school renovated its exercise facilities, and I convinced myself that I needed a home gym to go with the weights. I convinced myself of this despite the fact that I should have known that I would prefer in almost every way to go work out at the school gym. I like the camaraderie when it's there; I like the additional investment of time and the change of scenery, because it makes it more likely that I'll suck it up and finish my workout; I like the sturdier equipment: home gym equipment just never competes with professional equipment for a feeling of stability; and finally, there's just more variety of exercises I can do down at the gym. So I should have known that I would barely use it.
But I sunk $200 into it because it was such a great deal and I needed it to make use of the stuff I'd gotten for free. When it came time to have a professional mover move our stuff, I realized just how stupid this is. I mean, this stuff is heavy, and I'm essentially being charged by the pound. Why move this, when I know I'll be using the school's gym for the foreseeable future? So I put up an ad on Craigslist, with an asking price of $250. I figured that all of the stuff, new, would cost upwards of $600, but since I had gotten much of it for free, my main goal was to recoup my losses (and not move this stuff!).
I got a call the same day I posted it. They guy had a lot of questions, wanted to talk me down to $175. I wanted at least $200 (which is why I said $250). He said he'd call back later that day about coming to see the stuff. That was yesterday and I still haven't heard from him.
I got an e-mail today from someone offering to buy just the weights for $50, as well as someone who--no questions asked--seemed ready to take the whole thing. Someone else e-mailed and said he had agreed to buy a similar set for $150 but the person had been slow about allowing him to pick it up and would I be willing to sell for that price? I called the person who seemed eager to buy, got his wife/girlfriend/mother (who knows?) who said he would call me back in 5 minutes.
He didn't. I sent an e-mail follow-up, but then another guy called me and was ready to come over and see them and potentially buy them. He came, he saw, he gave me $250 in cash. It was so easy, I almost felt like I should have asked for more, since the effort of moving those things twice on my own was probably worth at least $50. Oh well--the good news is that I recouped my loss and won't have to move them ever again.
In other news, we started packing our books today, filling 13 boxes and barely feeling like we'd made a dent in our collection. I'm even trying to sell some of my books at a used bookstore, but we've got a lot more packing to do with under a week to do it all.
All of my school duties are finished, with the exception of getting the last few things that I own out of my classroom and returning the school-issued laptop.