ebay « single with vodka

Posts Tagged: ebay

rugrats are hi-lar-i-ous — No Comments
10
Dec 10

7: i have a life

10 y/o, “mom, look- a commercial about bloating.”

7 y/o: we’re booooorrrrreeeeed. what should we play?” “how about laundromat?” “7 y/o: “what’s that?” me:” it’s really fun – you get to fold your own laundry.” 10 y/o, “i’ll pass.”

7 y/o: “mom, can we watch tv after grandma leaves?” “yes.” “ok, i’ll get the tv ready.”

when we first got our kitten, we weren’t sure of the sex (it’s a boy), and this conversation ensued:

10 y/o: “i think it’s a girl.”

me: “how can you tell?”

10 y/o: “she just looks like a girl.”

me: “how so?”

10 y/o: “in her eyes.”

me: “her eyes?”

10 y/o: “yes. they sparkle. they say girl.”

me to 10 y/o: “you just like the attention.” 10 y/o: “oh, you know i do.”

10 y/o’s tooth fell out at school and she came home with it wrapped in a napkin. when she went to throw it out, i said, “no, don’t throw it out, i will give it to the tooth fairy. ” she rolled her eyes at me & said, “oh, where will that be? the garbage?”

i was really looking forward to a day off from work and school to spend with my girls until this announcement was made in unison: “we are going to be playing now. so, find something else to do.”

10 y/o gets confused between chinese and japanese people & their cultures. this was magnified when she went as a geisha for halloween and kept calling it a “chinese costume.” after correcting her several times, she finally said to me, “i can’t tell the people apart but i know their food.”

10 y/o to 7 y/o: “hurry up. you’re as slow as grandma!”

grandma: “hey!”

girls were playing “littlest pet shop” and 10 y/o as the turtle said, “i don’t eat meat. i’m veggeturtle.”

group of 10 y/o olds discussing the movie Freaky Friday: “i saw the old one. it had typewriters.” “ewwwww. that’s gross.”

7 y/o: “okay everybody follow me. make a vertical line.”

10 y/o “the kitten just made a defensive fart. maybe i should learn how to do that.”

10 y/o: ” i hate her.” me: “hate is such a strong word.” 10 y/o: “fine. i strongly, crudely, dislike her.”

me to 10 y/o: “get out of here & go play with your sister.” 10 y/o: “no she is boring.” 7y/o: “i am not! i’m not old & i don’t play bingo!”

7 y/o: “mommy, mommy come quick! there’s a deer in the backyard. he’s looking right at me.”

me: “yes, i think he hears us through the glass. they have really sensitive hearing.”

7 y/o: “i think deer like to eavesdrop.”

me to 10 y/o: “what are you saving all that stuff for? life is short, use it now, enjoy!”

10 y/o wrote a story & read it to us. 7 y/o then wrote one almost identical. 10 y/o said, “hey, that’s exactly what i wrote.” i said, “well, it’s cute. she wants to be just like you. it’s flattering.” to which 10 y/o responded: “it’s not cute when she’s plagiarizing my work.”

7 y/o: “yeah, you’ll end up like mommy – never using your things and then selling them on ebay.”

me to 10 y/o: “come, play with us.”

7 y/o: “no. i have tv to watch.. it won’t watch itself, you know.”

10 y/o: “the 3 R’s are Responsible, Respect, Record.” me: “Record? like on the DVR?” 10 y/o: “yes!”

7 y/o discussing her new gmail account with her grandmother: “it’s a good way to connect with people.”

10 y/o wanted to wear my pajama bottoms and then stopped in the midst of putting them to ask, “are these the ones you had your period in?”

10 y/o calling from shower, “tonight, i’m going to rinse and repeat.”

me to kitten: “hey little kitty, ” 7 y/o: “hey, little mommy.”

me to 7 y/o: “what exactly is The Turkey Trot?” 7 y/o: ” i think it’s an optical course.”

me to 10 y/o, “so did you get your phone fixed and it’s working now?” “yes.” “so, you’ll text me this weekend?” “yes, but don’t expect whole chats – i have a life.”

10 y/o: “dreidel, dreidel, dreidel, i made you out of plastic from somewhere in indonesia.”

grandma: “so do you like these cookies?” 10 y/o: “not really. what’s in them?” grandma: “fiber one cereal, peanut butter, & semi-sweet chocolate.” 10y/o, “i sensed they were healthy.”

10y/o dropped some candy: “oh no! jelly bean down!”

7 y/o: “this picture is inappropriate, it shows her boob line.”

me: “you know, you’ll have boobs one day.”

7 y/o: “but, i don’t want those jiggly things!”

me to 10 y/0: “want me to clip your nails for you?” “no, i like clipping my nails myself. it’s a sense of accomplishment.”

10 y/o: “i showed the boys on the bus pictures of my kitty”

me: “i never want to hear that again.”

10 y/o: “?”

one liners- hey it's easy — 3 Comments
3
Jun 10

caffeine, booze, & undereye concealer!

the divorce is the first thing my husband and i have agreed upon in the 14 years since we got married.

i’m thinking about hosting a dinner party – my wine rack is empty.

people tell me i look a lot younger than i am – i think vodka may have preservative qualities.

it really troubles me how poorly my family communicates; but i’m not going to say anything…

not only are some days a complete waste of makeup, but they are also a complete waste of contacts.

i am so happy i had 2 girls – i can’t wait until we are all on the rag at the same time.

my kids are seeing a therapist because i prefer to pay someone to listen them bitch about me so i don’t have to.

in these past 3 months, i have been caught in the middle of more than one marital spat over paint colors. so, one day i cheerfully told a particularly angry couple that i get $9.80 per hour to mix paint, but i charge $325 for mediation.

if i don’t call back, don’t take it personally -it’s only because i don’t want to.

not only am i my own worst enemy – but i am my own worst pusher.

i am so organized, my items for curbside bulk collection were all sorted and labeled. i take pride in having the neatest trash in my neighborhood.

self involvement is extremely time consuming.

it’s not really the possibility of catching an std that worries me about sleeping with strangers, it’s more the being found in a hotel room dead and chopped up into a million tiny pieces. i can just imagine that being explained to the kids: “well, girls, you see, mommy was a bit of a slut…”

when my kids tell me long stories i totally zone out. they never have a point anyway.

how much of a leap is it to make vodka from the decomposing potatoes in my pantry that i keep buying & forgetting i have? it seems such a waste to throw them out. while we are at it, what can you make out of onions?

for most women, me included, the supermarket is a major social event. it would really be helpful if they would install chatting & non-chatting aisles.

if you have girls, then motherhood is exactly like school, except the mean girls live with you.

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the cleaner

i don’t know what it is about organizing/cleaning that i so deeply adore, but i just can’t stop doing it. i know i come from a long line of anal people: my great grandfather was called The Tyrant, my grandfather insisted my grandmother iron his hankies into perfect squares, and my father kept his shirts in the bag with the cardboard from the cleaners precisely stacked on his closet shelves (my sister & i used to try to pirate that cardboard without disturbing the perfect order of his shirts but he knew every time). or maybe it is just my manifestation of OCD combined with the false sense of control i feel i have over my life when a drawer is perfectly outfitted with labeled bins. as a kid i loved to clean and purge. my sister was always rescuing my priceless childhood memories from the kitchen sized garbage bags i would smuggle up to my room and fill with stuff that i eventually tried to buy back on ebay (and it turns out you really can’t buy your childhood back). i even had a circa 1979 dymo label maker which my sister & i used to label everything in the gd house. there was nothing like new pristine school supplies and brandy new boxes of crayons to send me into a tizzy. and i was quite neat for the most part, save for the messy anomaly of my teenage years. so, you can not imagine what a horrible, awful surprise it was to learn i had married a slob of epic proportions. we are talking a filthy, messy, stacker. nothing tortures a neat person more than having a slovenly roommate (just ask felix unger). i was miserable and had to do something about it, so i turned to a trusted friend for help, Mr. Clean, and became completely obsessive with instilling order in my life.

the organizing impulse really kicked into high gear when i learned i was pregnant with my second child (a sweet surprise that occurred immediately after i lost the last bit of first baby weight & had bought an entirely new wardrobe of very expensive size 1 jeans which never got worn): i had the idea that if i could somehow systematize my entire home and catalog every single item located in it, i would be running a well oiled machine before rugrat number 2 joined the family to turn things upside down with her own special brand of chaos. it would be different this time after the baby came – it just had to be. it had been 3 years since number 1 invaded, and i was just beginning to feel like i was finally in control of my life again (which is really a well practiced illusion for anyone with children anyway). i watched all the organizing shows, bought instructional books (which i could now write myself), took notes, and then attacked my home from every angle. i purged all the useless items and had every single closet professionally organized. i was buying giant plastic storage tubs before it was fashionable. and i worked it like a job before there was an actual industry completely dedicated to the Organizing Arts. anyway, by the time i was 8 months pregnant and balancing with one toe on a bar stool i had fashioned into a ladder so i could clean off the last high shelf in the kitchen, i had achieved my goal of 100% complete domestic organization and OCD niravna was mine (but the post baby organizational bliss was short-lived since once that second runt became mobile, she quickly desecrated my sacred Temple of Neatness).

my closets became a thesis in anal retention. all garments were placed on wood hangers (NO WIRE HANGERS!) which all must be made of the same wood and finish and FACE THE SAME WAY. as a kid when i had those colorful plastic hangers, they too were arranged by color. clothes were lined up according to season, function, color order (ROY G. BIV), and arranged from shortest to longest by sleeve and overall length. do i even have to tell you about the shoes with polaroid pix on the front of the boxes displaying the contents and stacked according to the same stringent standards as the clothing placement? (but the move to the dorm room with what can barely be called a closet when the divorce started destroyed that fashion utopia. it’s okay. we will rebuild.) i also run a tight ship in all of my domestic departments: in the kitchen, all cans & food goods face the same way and are alphabetized according to type with tallest items in the back. there is no drawer lacking excessive amounts of perfectly fitting modular containers filled with color coordinated utensils. no spice is without a rack. in the bathroom, there is no hair care product apart from its brethren or out of a basket. no toiletry roams free allowed to float aimlessly in a drawer or a cabinet. all things must be properly contained & corralled. paper goods lined up by type. i have my own hot line to call for emergency label maker tape refills. hell, my entire basement & kitchen remodels were thinly veiled excuses to build glamorous storage spaces designed to hold beautiful high end containment systems. i built a fucking cedar closet outfitted with cedar hangers. i searched tirelessly for hours to find just the right bin and there was no organizing device i wouldn’t buy. i have my socks in grids. by color. and type. my bras & panties (which, i am sure you have figured out, must match) are stored as a set separated by color by drawer dividers. why i am not next in line for ceo of The Container Store (my heaven on earth) is a mystery to me. and there is no doubt that i successfully passed the organizing gene onto to my kids.

my kids have learned my insane habits too. miss 9 year old is painfully neat & won’t allow a single stray item in her room (which is really just a glorified container for her things since she pretty much lives with me in here in the cell). she also likes to throw everything out and has to be watched like a hawk just like me as a child. “you are going to want that in 25 years.” “no, i won’t.” “trust me. you will and you won’t be able to buy back your judy blume diary on ebay.unfortunately, i know.” (i certainly don’t want her to make the same purging mistakes i did as a young novice. i never had an organizing mentor.) miss 6 year old is truly a slob at heart, but does clean when asked, BUT she calls it “organizing,” and she can’t seem to tidy up without embarking upon huge re-organization projects that involve emptying every single thing she owns onto the floor and assigning new placements to each – which is the same exact way i clean. and by the way, i couldn’t wait for her to read so she could read the labels on all the bins and be organizationally self-sufficient. at one point after i had sold all of my own & the girls’ purged items on ebay, i dubbed my self The Tidy Terror and and i actually had an entire schtick going in which i helped people organize by going through their stuff and selling it for them on ebay. that was a decent gig for awhile but i had to store too much crap in my house and it conflicted with my personal domestic organizational scheme and just really began to stress me out, man.

you can immediately read my mental status by how neat & clean my house is. when i feel perfectly at ease in my life, the order in my home rivals that of a military barrack’s. when i start to lose it, you can see that by the deterioration of my home – stuff will be all over because i just stop caring. but then the mess stresses me out, so i go into a tornado of cleaning in order to feel more in control. a kind of chicken & egg conundrum really. so you can only imagine the manic depressive organizational cycles my home has suffered over the past 21 months of The Less Than Amiable Divorce Proceedings. and the reality of living immigrant style in one small room with my 2 girls, has taken it’s toll on my neatness as evidenced by the buffet of food stains that was formerly known as, The Carpet. so, naturally, it also follows that as the divorce winds down & i feel a renewed, but cautious, sense of hope & control over my own life, i was inspired to spring clean. the other evening i was feeling so elated about A New Development in The Divorce, that i sorted my enormous bag of free samples into a plastic expanding file AND labeled them appropriately with the professional grade DYMO 3000: cleansers, moisturizers, skin care, hair care, and makeup. OMG. that is soooo insane, even for me, but i was so full of self-satisfaction i that slept without a care in the world that night. but i don’t stop at my own domicile – i have to keep feeding the beast.

i dont fuck around with my organizing.

i have been known to invade other peoples’ homes with my cleaning tendencies if they will let me or are just too weak to resist. like when my mom was sick in december, i seized that as my opportunity to “help” her by organizing her life. first i pounced on her kitchen and cleared all the counters. i can’t stand so much stuff being displayed. then i emptied her pantry, fridge & freezer and scrubbed until it all shined like the top of the empire state building as miss hannigan had demanded of annie. i was completely disgusted with the state of her fridge – there is no excuse for mystery sticky messes & crumbs. i firmly believe that where you keep your food should be pristine. after eliminating the extremely past due food items, i returned it all to the shelves but it was merchandised perfectly: all labels facing out, products in alignment, condiments with condiments, juices all together, cheeses stacked by type in the drawer. next, i hit that mass of papers she likes to call The Office. i labeled all of her hanging files, filed all the piles of papers, and made her look through every loose scrap of paper, coupon, and article she pulled out that will never be read unless god forbid she was saving them for me (but she knows where i file all of that helpful advice – the circular file). then we made lists and lists of lists (oh god how i LOVE lists) and she pledged her devotion to a new life of organization and told me she would reform her wayward ways as soon as she was well again. it was 48 hours of restored health before things returned to their natural state & the sanctity of The Organizational Oath was violated. sigh, you can only do so much for some people. but i have new arenas for expansion.

now that i am gainfully employed, there is a whole new level of organizing i have undertaken that i never even imagined existed: The Paint Department. i like to keep busy all day at work – i am not one for standing around which drives the slackers who were hired before me nuts since i probably make them look bad. it’s not on purpose or to be a suck ass (what kind of ladder can i climb, other than orange, there anyway?) but as you can see, inventory control just comes naturally to me. obviously part of my job is to stock the shelves. now, most employees fill in “The Holes,” as well call them in The Business, only as a blatant need arises. i am busy pulling out merch from the back of the 6 foot deep shelves that hasn’t seen daylight since the store opened 13 years ago. it’s like an inventory Land Of The Lost back there. but i don’t sop there. oh no. i climb that 65 foot orange ladder to the roof-line so i can pull the boxes down from the top & properly label them with my corporately approved black sharpie. i put like items together into the proper bay’s overhead area directly above the same items on the shelves (we pros call it “striping”). why are those spray cans from here stored with the paint brushes over there? harummpf, i say. of course i get so involved in this fun, i forget that i actually have to mix paint for customers sometimes. but i have to tell you that the spray paint aisle has never looked so beautiful. it brings a tear to my eye. i found some colors that weren’t even out for sale! the other day, one of my associates commented, “girl, i walked by you today, and you were so far back into those shelves, all i could see were your feet.” plus the frequent squatting down to fix all of the items on the floor, gives me a great opportunity to show off my butt crack thanks to the popular low waisted jean styles of today (about which one of my pals commented, “maybe that is why the working class wears such unfashionable clothing.” she may have a point). but paint sales have risen in the past month…

today the paint department, tomorrow the entire store. next week, the world. muah-hah-hah.

Uncategorized — 3 Comments
26
Nov 09

gggb gives thanks

i could blather on about how grateful i am for my delicious children, supportive family, beloved friends, all my abundance, & yada yada which, of course, goes without saying; but here are a few more things a girl like me is thankful for this thanksgiving…

my young well hung boyfriend.

that my young well hung boyfriend doesn’t give a shit about the 5 extra pounds of muffin top that now pours over my jeans since we started dating.

that after losing my father, i still have a wonderful man in my life (see above) that supports me, gets me totally, thinks i am fabulous just the way i am & loves me unconditionally.

smart food white cheddar popcorn & carbohydrates in general.

the wonderland that is sephora.

joss stone, & alana davis.

chelsea handler & all talented, strong, & funny women, famous or not, who aren’t afraid to speak their minds.

my lawyer.

my lawyer’s staff.

not having to spend anymore time with the in-laws or pretending to like any of them ever again.

flavored vodka.

texting.

pendente lite.

butt wipes.

the freedom from giving a shit about what The Asshat (a.k.a. ex husband to be) thinks about anything i do. actually, what he thinks about anything at all.

the wonderful sense of humor my father had and how he taught me to see the humor in everything, every day.

not having to sleep next to a Snoring Fat Ape ever again.

never being seen in a yellow car/suv again.

not pretending to care about anything that has to do with the “the market or “work.”

not having to wash stained underwear, rush (a.k.a. The Worst Band Ever) t-shirts, or filthy socks.

not having to care about how foul the bathroom i don’t use anymore now is.

finally feeling completely free to be myself.

having the fortitude to show some people that payback is a bitch & consequences for bad behavior are real.

ebay, facebook, google mail, zappo’s, nordstrom, & online shopping.

talk soup, the dish, family guy, the simpsons, & the like for making me laugh daily.

my DVR.

ipods & limewire.

paige petite jeans.

flat irons.

high heeled clogs & wedges.

my mom’s new kitty, dexter.

the incredible strength my mother possesses & passed on to me .

the bright future that i know lies ahead of me.

my dear friend mary petto who invited my mother and i to join her family dysfunction this year. she ended up putting out her back & spent it flat on her couch while the rest of us ate ourselves into a tryptophan induced coma in her dining room.

having happy memories of my father being with us last year on this very day.

Uncategorized — 12 Comments
23
Sep 09

the ebaybe years

several years ago i discovered the most glorious website ever invented. the greatest testament to capitalism, american style, thy name is ebay. it was in the early ’00′s. ebay was in its heyday and my budget knew no bounds. literally over night, i became obsessed with this amazing online bidding phenomenon. after i quickly ran out of practical items to purchase, i started collecting like i had never collected before. i have been known to dabble in OCD & that combined with my failing, yet lucrative marriage made my romance with ebay’s ability to score me rare items, on which i could outbid anybody by putting in astronomical amounts, simply unavoidable. i went through major purchasing phases of different genres of items for years. i bought household items, clothing, shoes (every style of high heeled michael kors clog), designer purses, custom made bedazzled tee shirts ( i had an in with every seller) to name a few. and everything had to be new with tags (NWT). my feedback score is so high because of all the crap i bought, not sold. selling came later & we shall get to that i assure you. i was sure that if something couldn’t be found on ebay, it just didn’t exist. if you mentioned looking for something & were unable to find it, my standard response was, “did you check ebay?”

soon, my loneliness in my loveless marriage was replaced by the all consuming passion of finding my childhood items. neither my mom, nor i were big savers. so i got rid of mostly everything i had as a kid. i was rediscovering long lost items. extensively researching them, stalking, & tracking them down on ebay. offering outrageous “buy it nows” (BIN) to sellers who thought i was loopy. but my silght OCD could not allow me to rest until that item was in my hand. and all the toys absolutely had to be MINT. yes, obviously, i have perfectionist issues too. finding unused perfect toys from 30 years ago will significantly up the cash value of such items. i was buying bristle blocks, vintage board games like don’t tip the waiter, old school candyland, perfection & superfection (both of which gave my then 2 yr old a heart attack), alpha blocks, 42 boxes of vintage colorforms, miscellaneous dolls (remember dressy bessy?), several libraries of children’s books (ahh, my beloved sweet pickles set), 6 richard scarry playskool sets, weebles, fashion plates, sets of garbage pail kids cards, barbie’s hair salon, & basically every toy i could remember ever having owned. but the coup de gras was the fisher price little people (FPLP to those of us in the biz. ebay has its own language born of limits of letters on auction titles). and i remember clearly when i lost my mind over FPLP. there was a lot to learn & i was a quick study.

FPLP had their own following. a community complete with discussion boards and i fast became the ultimate ebay nerd bedecked in a bedazzled ebay t-shirt. i was thrilled to learn that there were tons of little peeps. there were the typical guys you knew, but i discovered something called the variation: these were LPs with the rare colored body, the unusual expression, the european versions, ethnicitized versions, wood bodies, plastic bodies, mistakes that came out of the factory: all highly collectible. oh, but one had to beware beacuse deviant FPLP sellers lurked among us. very very bad boys & girls who manufactured fake deviations in their domestic subterranean toy laboratories. selling them for crazy money to those poor little lambs who didn’t know. there are books & websites dedicated to cataloging authentic peeps & known fakes. it was like the fisher price CIA. but nonetheless, i had to have every single one of them. i got hooked up with another FPLP looney-toon and she started selling to me directly through my own personal auctions. she must have been happy as a pig in shit because i didn’t care what it cost if i wanted it. i was collecting the playsets too. i had to have a complete perfect set with a mint set of people. i had to own every set ever made. even if i already had the people that went to the playset, i needed a new set of peeps just for that playset. i was an FPLP snob. not only were they residing in sixteen (yes, 16) compartmentalized containers, labeled by type (via professional label maker, because i tolds ya i don’t do much 1/2 assed) but i cataloged my FPLP via an excel spread sheet. omg. a spread sheet? i was hitting rock bottom fast. how crazy was i becoming in the quest for happiness in my life? i was losing my mind & i didn’t care. i had teeny tiny plastic people to whom i could tell my troubles and who loved me (and that’s i have ever really wanted: just to be loved. well, by a full sized male human). i wouldn’t even let my kids play with the peeps for fear they might muss their mint condition status. one errant smudge or paint chip and it was all over. simultaneously, i was planning my basement remodel. i had so many FP playsets & FPLPs that i actually designed a shelving system to display all of it. my reality check came when i left my laptop out one day signed into my ebay account and mr. asspants saw the exorbitant amount of money i had spent on FPLP. he lost his shit, rightly so, and forbade me to buy anymore. shah. whatever. i would be damned if he was going to take the only joy i experienced outside of my children away from me. especially when he was the catalyst in the first place. but like it or not, i did start to see what i was becoming: a full blown mental patient. i had to stop or i had to find a 12 step FPLP recovery program. it was downright nuts & besides, storage was becoming an issue. eventually i sold off most of the childhood finds & the FPLP, but i still have approximately 272 tiny little people living here with me in my divorce process dorm room (formerly the room known as, guest). i will never unload them for more than a fraction of what i paid, so i actually let my girls play with them now. well, most of them. okay, not the sesame street people. a mint prairie dawn in worth like 50 bucks. and a mint herry monster? priceless. they come up for bid only during a harvest moon.

DSCN0346

another part of my ebay insanity was to keep buying new sets of the same thing to upgrade it: i.e. my colorforms. if i found a rare set, say the highly coveted holly hobby glow in the dark house that i paid over 70 clams for, but if one colorform was missing, i would hold the set until a complete set came along, buy the new set & resell the one i had. usually at a loss or barely break even. i did this with all kinds of things, but vinatge toys mostly. i didn’t care if i sold at a loss because i was in search of the perfect set, not a profit. i went so far as to start an ebay group for a colorform exchange program. i am not making this up. i am truly that obsessive. you have an extra i need? i have one you need. let’s exchange them. surely i can’t be the only whack job buying entire sets for 1 colorform. umm, yah, turns out i was. ebay folded the group due to lack of interest. yay, another new low.

finally, i came to my senses and parlayed this bizarre talent into actually selling for a profit. der kommissar had such a tight hold on the family finances that i had to make some cash for myself. so i began selling anything in my house that wasn’t nailed down. i didn’t care what i made. i just wanted liquidity. i was basically scamming him. i would buy items with the credit card & then resell them on ebay when i was done with the item. this was the most fabulous justification for shopping because everything had untapped resale potential. so i reasoned i was going to make the cash back. however, it did add a certain slightly stressful edge to daily life when i had to keep not only the item, but the packaging too, in what i called” ebay condition.” i even purchased plastic 1/2 body dummies to model my clothes upon for the re-sale photos. i got a tripod & set up a photo studio in my basement. i was fuckin’ hard-core. i don’t mess around, my homies. i rarely made my anticipated killing though.

at this point a few years had passed (time does fly online), & i had become such an ebay efficienato, that friends & family were taking notice. i knew all the tricks of the e-trade. there was nothing i couldn’t buy or sell on ebay and they wanted in. i became an ebay power seller, people (for rills! they sent me a certificate and everything). at first it was a great idea. i designed business cards and a logo and dubbed myself “the tidy terror,” which i think is perfectly self explanatory. i was selling anything you asked me to for a 50/50 split of the profit after the ebay fees. hefty commission fer sure, but i got results. it became an all encompassing endeavor with more & more people wanting me to sell stuff. and i had to be diplomatic about their items. everyone thinks they have the best crap in town and it’s worth a fortune. what we all didn’t know was that the ebay market was about to bottom out from sheer seller saturation. it was getting harder & harder to sell regular items. only in demand craft items or rare & vintage items were still selling. i was losing money in fees for unsold merchandise & drowning in a sea of other people’s used clothes. let’s not even discuss how often an obsessive person like myself checks to see if her listings have any bids. there is a whole bidding strategy in which people wait til the last minute to bid, called “bid sniping.” it was driving me out of my ebay ravaged mind checking every 20 minutes for 7 days. and ebay shows you how many watchers you have. you can have 99 watchers & no bids on the same item someone else sold for a zillion dollars the week before. the ebay universe follows no rhyme or reason and it just became too much weight to bear. also, the pressure from my “clients” was becoming unbearable. i was crushing their dreams of new louis vuittons with slouching sales & poor profits.

then there was the shipping and packing: a production in & of itself. i was up late at night listing my items & exhausted in the morning packing them. i was spending hours packing & shipping items all over the place. i had purchased a postal scale, bubble mailers, shipping labels, packing tape, & was saving hundreds of boxes in my garage. i kept every box that was ebay worthy because it cut into the profit margin to buy boxes. recycling shipping supplies was a must for the same reason. i had piles of packing materials & bags of styrofoam peanuts. my mother was bringing her boxes & used wrappings over to my garage. it was out of hand – i had a gd shipping center in my basement. i had my own account with ups & the usps for jeebus chisto sakes. it was clear i had to retire and my passion for all things ebay began to subside. when all was said and done i really didn’t make money. it takes a 24/7 dedication to selling on ebay to make a real living at it. oh and a storage facility. and maybe an assistant over age 5.

however, my shining ebay moment came after that when i was redoing my kitchen and i sold the old kitchen on ebay for a few thousand dollars. i sold an entire kitchen people. literally selling everything and the kitchen sink.

the divorce proceedings really killed my whole ebay thing. i was very busy responding to false claims & general lunacy, that i had no time anymore for my previous ebay passion. then the asshat had blocked me from all of the finances and refused to pay the credit cards. ebay shopping kind of lost its appeal while he was busy trying to destroy my credit. but most recently, a dear friend asked me to help her and sell a few things for her. so i am dipping my toes back into the ebay pool slowly & cautiously. i made no promises to her, but i went to her house, collected items, measured, photographed, described, listed, & i am hoping for the best. if the results are favorable, the ebaybe just may make a comeback – i still have a few tricks up my sleeve…

the ebaybe’s 5 simple rules for ebay happiness:

yes, i will sell your crap for you on ebay, half, or craig’s list: provided you are willing to abide by these 5 simple little rules:

1. i am the ebaybe. the ebaybe shall not be questioned. i decide the amount i will list your stuff for & if it’s even a saleable item. everybody thinks their crap is the best stuff ever & worth a fortune. newsflash: it’s not. unless you have a majorly rare item or pristine antique. in which case, you should be talking to christie’s or the comic store guy & not me. plus people are on ebay to save money. this means they want cheap stuff. it’s little more than a giant glorified garage sale for the entire world.

2. you do not get to “bust the trade” so to speak, if you are unhappy with the final bid amount on your item. this is a big no-no on ebay and will fuck up my perfect 100% feedback score. understand, as a seller on ebay, all you have is your feedback score and i am already jeopardizing it by even getting involved with you & your crap in the first place. my feedback makes my lovely items more desirable over some other schmuck’s same exact crap. so the moral of the story is” you get what you get and you don’t get upset. ” well you can get upset, but i don’t want to hear about it.

3. selling shit on ebay is a very involved process, therefore i am not doing it out of the goodness of my heart. i will come to your house, inspect your items, take them home, photograph them, measure them, list them, deal with all the idiots & freaks on ebay, pack it up, & ship it. this is time consuming, therefore, i get a cut of the profits after ebay’s fee’s & commission. yes, we share the net profit, people. now, i am not a greedy person. i am a reasonable woman. but if you bug the bejeebus out of me during this process with incessant calls of “did you post it yet, ” or “how is my stuff doing?” and etc. , my cut rises exponentionally. go to my link & bookmark the page & keep it track of it yer damn self. and for god’s sake, clean your goddamn stuff before i get there. no one wants to buy things with 17 years of dust on it.

4. you must take back your unsold items. i am not running a storage facility or donation bin. you are responsible for this part. i will not hesitate to throw your priceless heirlooms out if you leave them at my house for a week after they do not sell.

5. you get paid when i get paid. you will know when this happens because you will receive money from me. it takes time to get paid. you will not harass me about it. if you do, see the part in rule 3 about my cut.

now, if you still want to do business with a complete bitch, let’s talk. until then, take a look at my current auctions (if i even have any at the time you are reading this)

check out my listings:

ebay

half.com

please…….