Name me Fred.
I’m about 80% of the best way thru “Moby Dick” now (technically “Moby-Dick” in the event you’re a Literary Fred) and so immersed am I in it that I see Dick all over I’m going. And prefer tempestuous Ahab pacing the deck of the Pequod upon his whalebone peg-leg, I too am tormented by way of my very own white whale, that being a couple of Spinergys:
[It is said that a full-grown Cipollini can produce more oil than a mature sperm whale.]
It began when I used to be plying the seas of Craigslist and noticed this publish:
As a semi-professional blogger these days engaged in an in depth research of a antique carbon-and-titanium racing motorbike, I figured those wheels could be helpful for each medical and novelty functions. So, on a whim, I proffered a modest be offering, and as I prior to now similar I used to be soundly rebuffed:
I figured that used to be that, however then an nameless benefactor presented to subsidize the acquisition. So I despatched any other message to the vendor agreeing to pay the whole quantity, assured that the wheels would now be mine:
Oddly, no answer used to be drawing close, and because the wheels drifted additional and additional away, my want for them best higher. “Possibly they’ve already been bought,” I believed to myself, but if I looked for the publish the following morning, no longer best used to be it nonetheless up, however the vendor had decreased his worth to $150:
Just a madman would forget about or refuse an be offering for his complete asking worth best to scale back it by way of 25% the very subsequent day, and so I figured the one logical clarification used to be that he had no longer observed my 2nd e-mail in any respect. And so, undaunted, I despatched a brand new one:
The answer got here right away:
I did as advised. The wheels had been now tantalizingly shut–so shut I may just consider myself thumbing a couple of tires onto them. However out of the transparent sky got here a surprising squall that blew them violently out to sea:
I must indicate that those screenshots include the whole lot of his messages, and that his curt replies had been at no level decorated with phrases similar to “please” or “thanks” or some other type of well mannered discourse. Moreover, the ZIP code he signifies is within the neighborhood of Ithaca, NY, which is definitely over 200 miles clear of New York Town. So while I undertaking to provide each human the advantage of the doubt, I admit I in finding it each puzzling and vexing that anyone would act annoyed and put-upon by way of anyone else providing to provide him cash for one thing he’s indexed on the market on a public discussion board. Moreover, I in finding it doubly puzzling and vexing that in spite of being nowhere close to New York Town he’d compose the publish in any such manner that it presentations the wheels mere steps from the subway line I experience a minimum of two times every week:
With reference to this latter level, I figured I must convey this to his consideration, if best as a result of I didn’t need him to assume I used to be the type of schmuck who replies to classifieds record in Ithaca and provides to select up the products in Ny. So I despatched the next message, whole with screenshot appearing the map:
And but as I kind this the publish continues to be are living, with out a indication by any means of the vendor’s location as opposed to a map of Ny with a pin in it proper within the neighborhood of 14th Boulevard and seventh Street::
Examine his comportment with that of, say, this vendor, to select one kind of at random:
No longer best is he transparent about his location, however he clearly understands that purchasing and promoting calls for a specific amount of verbal exchange, despite the fact that it does require one to engage with the occasional looky-loo. Sure, invariably he’ll get the peculiar e-mail like, “Will this paintings on my fixie?,” and “I’ll provide you with $75, will you ship those to Poughkeepsie?” However sooner or later an celebration will occur upon them, they’ll shoot a couple of emails backward and forward, they’ll trade cash for items, and the wheels of trade will proceed to roll instantly and true.
After all, by way of this level a sane individual would surrender the search. (In truth, a sane individual would have given it up after his preliminary be offering used to be refused–or, maximum sanely, by no means made an be offering within the first position.) Then again, I’m a semi-professional motorbike blogger, no longer a qualified sane individual, and so I hereby nail my doubloon the mast and claim that if any of you dozens of readers in the market occur to are living within the Ithaca space and need to acquire those wheels for me I’ll luckily reimburse you for the $150 and the delivery to New York Town, plus just a little beer cash on your troubles. And of course I’d implore you to regard the vendor respectfully and no longer in anyway divulge that you simply’re in cahoots with that schmuck in New York Town who saved emailing him. I don’t need vindication and I don’t need to violate his privateness in anyway; all I need is the wheels.
Within the intervening time, like Ahab pacing on a prosthetic limb constructed from the bone of the very species that torments him, I’ll simply take a seat right here and stare at my Spinergy clock:
I won’t have any Spinergys, however I’ve were given rather a lot and quite a lot of time.