I should have known it was too good to be true!

I should have learned my lesson after the dvds I mailed to Alaska, or the game I mailed to Pennsylvania, but greed got the better of me again.

Yesterday I was bored at work and thought I’d put a few items up for sale on Amazon.com, as I had done successfully several months ago. Among other things I listed a book, a set of VHS tapes, a CD, and a Golden Retriever Lilkinz Webkinz. I’m not sure how I was suddenly inspired to list my stuffed Alf toy. There were other listings (of Alf for sale), as well as on E-bay too, though none seemed to be selling. Perhaps that’s what gave me the courage to offer mine up too, not thinking it would actually sell ($15 was my asking price).

Thus, I was very surprised, to say the least, when I checked my e-mail after returning from lunch to find that it had sold, and I was to ship it out as soon as possible. I spent the rest of the day agonizing about this moral dilemma. Part of me was happy to be getting paid $15 for something on which I only spent a few dollars for over a decade ago. The other half of me was sad to see it go after owning it for at least 12 years.

I definitely thought of backing out of the deal, but trying to be mature and adult about it, I thought, ‘well, a promise is a promise.’

I also drew strength from remembering how my husband had to give up his favorite Amiga computer (and monitor and games, etc.) when he moved to the states with me. Not only would postage be exorbitant, being on different voltage here, it wouldn’t work anyway.

Then there was my dad who lost some of his most treasured items when my parent’s basement flooded back in 2006.

After taking numerous amounts of photos with Alf and giving him one last hug, I placed him in the box, covered him gently with newspaper and taped the lid shut. He at least got to spend the morning in my air conditioned office before taking him to the UPS store at lunch.

The story ends when the nice lady (with whom I chatted about life in Hilliard since she lives there too) told me Ground shipping would be over $12 instead of $7 as I had calculated. I felt like I had just sold my best friend for $3! I think my co-worker probably said it best when he said, “Now you’re sentimentally scarred as well!”

I think I’m going to stick to E-bay from now on where you can set the amount of postage in order to increase your profit margin. I think I’m also going to stop selling my cuddly toys!