Daily Archives: May 12, 2006

Buyer

Woodworking

I get many replies to my Craig’s List ad. The first one is unsigned and not so comprehensible, asking if the saw is still available. The second reply is signed with a first and last name, states quite concisely: “I would like to buy the table saw.” He also gives me a phone number and says when he can come pick it up.

Sold!

We exchange a few emails, logistics and whatnot, and arrange to meet at Chez Bohls on Friday around 6:30 p.m. Dawn & I see him climbing up the stairs to our place just as we come around the corner home from work. We meet and greet and invite him in. And he’s a super swell guy, an older gentleman. He’s a tad frail, and no wonder: he explains the myriad illnesses and accidents that have befallen him.

We chat some and then he goes out the front to bring the van around back, where I load the saw in the back for him. I spy a Ryobi AP10 planer in the back as well and ask him about it. He chuckles a bit at my tool geekiness and explains that it also is a Craig’s List purchase. He says he’ll consider selling it to me when he’s done with it. I say that sounds like a grand idea.

He’s just pulling away when I spot the saw’s owner’s manual that I’ve left on the back deck & forgotton to load into the van. I grab it and tear ass after him, but I don’t catch him. I bolt through the house to see if I can get him before he turns on Independence on his way out of town, but I don’t make it nearly in time. On the shameful walk back to the house I realize that I’ve also got in my pocket the two wrenches that were promised in the ad. They were sitting on the saw and I stuck them in my pocket to carry the saw outside.

I feel terrible. I look up the email where he gave me a phone number and call the number, hoping that it’s his cell phone and he’s still close by. But I get a woman’s voice on an answering machine or voicemail. I leave a message explaining that I’ve forgotten to include a few things, offering to mail them on my dime. A little while later a woman calls back, saying not to worry and that mailing would be fine, but that she insists on paying postage.

Such nice people. Of course I have no intention of letting them pay the postage.

(The rest of the night and weekend replies keep coming in to the ad. I send everyone a note, saying that the saw’s been sold.

I don’t get around to buying a padded envelope for the manual and wrenches until Tuesday, and I don’t get to the post office and mail them until Wednesday afternoon. Get home from work on Wednesday and we’ve gotten a letter in the mail, with an enclosed check. It’s for twenty-five dollars. He says he feels like he’s paid too little for the saw. He also says to donate the money to charity in lieu of sending it back.

Did I mention nice people?)

Friday

Work

Back at work for one day this week. We have an IPR of the online application that Krishna is developing, with too many folks in my office, on a conference call and WebEx session with Krishna. It all goes pretty smoothly, though, and the membership folks like what we’ve got so far, with minor tweaks.

Later we’re off to Tony & Joe’s at Washington Harbour for our Staff Appreciation Week lunch. I’ve been out of the office for the first four days of SAW, so it’s good to be able to do at least one event. I share a cab over with Marty and Mila. At lunch I sit with Sasha, Michelle, Laura, and Joe. I have the salmon, which is pretty good, with a not good salad and a blah baked potato.

Later there’s giveaways from vendors, and I win a two-night weekend stay for two at the Hyatt Regency in Atlanta. The Hyatt’s on Peachtree Street, just a block up from where I used to work at 133 Peachtree and where my first wife Rebecca used to work at 191 Peachtree. Yeah, I’m so looking forward to staying there and reliving all those memories.

I know, I’m being unfair. And ungracious. It’s a nice gift, a remarkably generous gift, worth like five hundred bucks or so. ASH did bring twenty thousand people to Atlanta in December at the annual meeting, so it’s probably a small gesture on the Hyatt’s part, but it’s a lot to me. But I’m not sure Dawn and I can ever use it, though. We do go to Newnan GA, just south of Atlanta, every year, but we stay with my in-laws. We’ve only got a few days down there, so seems like we shouldn’t be staying downtown.

I don’t know. Maybe we can use it. Or maybe we can give it to her brother or sister, give one of the couples a weekend away from their kids.