SELLING TRIALS

After having bought a new vehicle, I am attempting to sell my old truck. It has been a good truck and reliable and needs a good home. I have parked it out on the front lawn (in good country tradition) and for the past two weeks I have fielded calls, jumped at the knocks on the front door at all hours and dealt with interrogational questioning about the condition of my merchandise. But the worst, just behind the people that make appointments to see the thing and don’t show up, are the repeated and unrelenting attempts to get me to lower the price. The thing is, I priced it with the understanding in my mind that though it was a fair price and below Blue Book value, I would still be willing to go down as much as a third of the asking price. But I find myself becoming quite stubborn about the price when I am given the reasons as to why I should lower it by these prospective buyers. If it were something to do with the vehicle itself, like they wanted the price lowered because they discovered something mechanically wrong with it, fine, that’s reasonable, but there have been no such requests, the reasons I have been given as to why I should sell it cheap have varied, but all have the same theme; ‘feel sorry for me and sell it to me cheaper,’ about sums it up. One woman who wanted to buy it lamented her recent brain surgery and insisted on showing my her stitched up head. I did lower the price and she said she would buy it, but never showed up at the agreed upon time. Another old guy called me up and said, “You need to lower the price because I’m poor.” Ah, why should your crummy circumstances affect the price of what I have for sale in my front yard? Twice I have made a deal with two sets of people who have never showed up to actually buy the truck. One set actually called me and said they would be over in 30 minutes. I waited, and waited, postponing the things I needed to be doing, finally after two hours of waiting I called them back. ‘Oh, we changed our minds.’ Was the only explanation I was given, not even an apology was offered for not calling to let me know of their changed decision. It is almost worth keeping the old truck to haul straw and feed just so as not to have to go through the process of selling it!

So, after waiting another week for someone else who told me they wanted the truck that I never heard from again, I have written the following to post in the window next to the price information. I am hoping that it helps weed out those who are not at least semi-serious about buying my old Ford. Or maybe someone will just steal it and put me out of my misery.


If you are interested in test driving this truck or wish to view its interior, please call and I will make arrangements for you to do so. Everyone’s time is valuable, so please honor mine by actually show up when you say you will.

$1,500.00 is the price of this truck. It is a fair price 25% under the Blue Book value. Please do not expect me to lower the price because you cannot afford it, or because you just had brain surgery, or lost your job, or your wife left you, or your dog died, or your feet hurt, or you are just cranky today.

This vehicle runs very well and has nothing major wrong with it that I are aware of. I am an honest people, but I am not a mechanic, so I make no guarantees. If you want the opinion of a mechanic, feel free to bring one with you because all sales are final. The few quirks that it has are as follows: the engine light and the ABS light go on and off for no apparent reason and have done so since I bought the truck three and a half years ago. I have had this checked out and had diagnostics run and everything checks out okay, I was told it was probably a faulty sensor. It has not had any impact on the vehicle’s performance in all that time. Also, the key no longer will unlock the back hatch. The hatch CAN be unlocked by using the electronic unlock button in the car, just not with the key. All other locks work fine. These are the only faults that I know of, none of which affect the truck’s ability to run well.

If after all of this you decide you wish to purchase this vehicle, I will accept cash or a cashier’s check. No personal checks. No coupons. No trading stamps. No I.O.U.s or promises. If you want to purchase this truck, come with cash in hand; please do not expect me to hold it for you. The first with the cash is the first I sell it to.

Thank you for your consideration.

COUNTING CENTS

My lunch hours are usually spent rushing around trying to do errands without trailing two young children. So it was two days before Thanksgiving with me sprinting around the local grocery hunting and gathering for our holiday dinner. Even in my haste I try to arrange items in my basket so that the cashier is not tempted to put together fragile items with the heavier goods. Even so, the cashier behind the counter that day still managed to place the bananas not only in the same bag as the canned goods, but under them. Then large jars of apple sauce went in on top of the eggs. Oye! So there I was pulling items out of bags as fast as she put them in and rearranging it all. Also things like large bottles of laundry detergent out of the single bag it was placed in… I don’t need any more plastic bags thank you very much. Normally I take in my reusable ones, but not at this particular store, it completely baffles them.

Once finally all rung up my total was $212.20, which I paid in cash. I don’t normally use cash, I use my debit, but I had just been to the bank and knew I was going shopping so I happen to have cash. I hand over $220.00. The cashier presses some keys and the cash register tells her she owes me $92.97 in change. She stares at it. She presses another key. Now it tells her she owes me $127.19 in change. She stares some more. “I don’t think that is right.” I say trying to be helpful, because she seems completely mystified. “Yeah, I must have done something wrong.” (Gee, ya think?). She continues to stare another moment and then reaches for the twenties in her cash drawer, has second thoughts, then pulls out 2 fives, then puts them back. I interject at this point, “You just need to count backwards from my total.” She then stares at me instead of the cash drawer. “Okay,” I say, “I gave you $220.00, just give me eighty cents, that makes $213.00, then give me seven more dollars.” She follows my direction and thanks me profusely saying, “I would have never figured that out.” Now, believe me, I am in no way some kind of math wiz, I hate math, it was my worse subject in school, I practically get hives attempting to check over my 8 year old’s homework. But one would think you certainly don’t have to be mathematically gifted in order to be able to count backwards. It’s a sad state of affairs if I have to give instructions to anyone on how to count.

I didn’t want to mention that her cash drawer is probably going to come up a couple hundred dollars in the black at the end of her shift; I was in too much of a hurry to try and explain that one. Poor thing.

©KKW 2008