Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Garage Sale Fury

We had our garage sale several weeks ago. We have never had a garage sale before, so we each had our whole lifetime to gather items for this sale. In fact, we had so many things to sell that our neighbors thought that we were moving. We are not moving. We just had so much crap (crap to us, treasures to others) to get rid of.

Most people were nice and polite. But let me tell you about a pain in the ass couple. They came to our garage sale with their sons. The were interested in one of Justin's small remote controlled mini cars. They bought one for $10...a steal because that had originally cost Justin about $80. Then Justin said that for $10 he would give throw in an even better one as well. Sweet, right? The wife misunderstood somehow and thought that Justin said $17 total. He did not. And she went straight into bitch mode. Serious bitch mode. But because we own a business here we can't just haul off and say what we want to (unless I post it on my blog and keep the people anonymous). Justin handled himself well with the wife and did not give her attitude back and just gave her the $3 discount and sucked it up.

Everything was fine, right? Oh no. I get a knock on our door Saturday (2 weeks after the garage sale) from the husband, saying that the $7 mini car did not work...that his kid was upset...that he was upset...that he came back to our house the night of the garage sale and left a note on our door (which we did not get) saying that his kid was crying and they want us to fix the mini car. And the guy was upset pointing blame to Justin; that Justin was "talking up" the car. He basically accused Justin of selling a non-working item. I handled it well, especially for being woken up at 9:00 am on a Saturday morning and told him we would look at it.

But I was pissed. And I'm still pissed. First of all, the wife talked Justin down $3 and was completely rude to him. Second, Justin would not knowingly sell a thing that wasn't working. Third, we put on a Haunted House for the whole town each year, we own our business here, does he really think that we would purposely sell a non-working item? Fourth, really...who comes back to the place of a garage sale and wants their money back or for you to fix an item? We aren't Wal-Mart. And for him to have already left a note and then still come back? Really? Can't he teach his kids a lesson that sometimes life isn't fair and sometimes things that you buy at garage sales don't work or sometimes parents are too stupid to figure out how to charge a remote controlled car and get it running? But no, the guy came back, 2 weeks later over $7.00 at 9:00 am on a Saturday morning.

After consulting with Justin, who got up right after the guy left...we decided our best course of action: to not look at the car and give the guy his $7.00 back. We left the money on our door. Later that afternoon we noticed the envelope was gone. Later that night, Justin looked at the car and was able to charge it and get it running, with no issues.

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