Pimp My Hundred Bucks - Part Twenty One
In the past week I’ve been mauled by an angry cat, survived a 4.8 magnitude earthquake and received a rude email. Quite an exciting week really!
Thanks to Felix, my ginger Rodentus Enemius I have a two and a half inch scratch marking the drumstick region of my thumb with its pain and bloody glory. I was trying to do him a favor by taking him to the vet but we never made it past the getting-him-into-the-cage stage as his back legs suddenly and miraculously turned into spinning lawn mower blades for my own special treatment of say-good-bye-to your-thumb pink face! (Sometimes Felix communicates with me through my own imagination so there’s a small chance I made that last part up). Nevertheless, there was nothing fake about me cancelling his vet appointment and swearing that he can die from whatever it was he was meant to be getting immunized against before I try putting him inside that cage again. Either that or I’m going to need one of those police shields you see used in riots, that and a large pair of chop sticks. He must have sensed my ferocity because he didn’t show his ginger locks again until after dinner time, which was just as well because he might have ended up on the menu.
Earlier this week I was sitting at my desk at work when all of a sudden I had this feeling I had entered the Jelly Dimension. Everything seemed to be wobbling. My desk, my chair my Jurassic Park style glass of rippling water all seemed to be shaking in anticipation of the T-Rex about to barge its way through my Projection Booth…
My first thought was that a really big truck must have been going past the Cinema but then, while I was still sitting there unconcerned about the new shaking world I found myself in, I realized that they don’t make trucks that long and it dawned on me this must be an earthquake. AN EARTHQUAKE?! I quickly jumped under my desk, and as I huddled under my dark wooden fortress I began to wonder how the rescue parties might find me in my little bubble under all the rubble until I realized my cell phone was comfortably sitting on top of the desk enjoying the moment with no concern at all. I made the decision to risk my life for my phone because being trapped in the toppled remains of a movie theatre without the internet is more than I could bear… except the “earthquake” had stopped and there was no point jumping under the desk anymore, even though I secretly wanted to on account of its sleepy possibilities.
Naturally I called my boss and neither he, nor any of the floor staff had felt anything. So much were they engrossed in their work, focused on the movie going public, that they didn’t take a moment to consider the earth moving beneath their feet, along with the roof (with me inside it) above their heads.
Having confirmed with geonet.co.nz that it was indeed the real deal I, along with the rest of Auckland, came to terms with the fact that I was being a great big girl’s blouse over the whole thing. The only casualties in the entire city were a garden chair and a sparrow, which died of natural causes completely unrelated to Auckland’s rendition of the Harlem Shake.
Incidentally I saw the so called Harlem Shake for the first time today on the internet. What a complete load of rubbish.
Having survived the ordeal, of both the Harlem Shake and Auckland’s great quake of 2013 I was left with a certain affinity for my fellow man and an appreciation for what I have against the things that I do not, like the $9 one customer still owes me from two weeks ago. I had waited five days for a payment that never came, deeming that to be a reasonable amount of time to pass before offering him a little nudge via the old email. He wrote back apologizing and that his internet banking wasn’t working and that he’d need to go to the bank in person blah blah blah…
I’m pretty patient with these sorts so I gave him ANOTHER five days and sent him another motivational message across the impersonal and non-threatening ether of the web… now I didn’t want to frighten the poor chap so I made my email a bit upbeat and positive, at least that’s what I thought I was doing:
Hi there
So um… yeah still no payment, what’s up with that?
Cheers
K
To which I received the reply:
What’s up with the?? Wow, really, gee I couldn’t make it to town on the only day off I have and now your circling me like a shark…
I told him that my having waited for ten days made me a very patient shark.
I’m actually waiting for a few AWOL payments and the thing I don’t understand is these missing buyers have been people with excellent feedback from other Trademe users… but then again I find myself less apt to leave bad feedback for fear they will return the favor…
The fact that I’m currently owed about $16 from these rogue traders however doesn’t help explain why I’ve gone backwards this week… I mean really backwards… I’ve gone so far backwards that my back has grown a face!
Maybe it’s been a combination of the moving earth, the cat with a lust for human thumbs and the fact that people find the Harlem Shake even remotely interesting that I seem to have lost over $40 in this week’s total? Or then again it’s likely due to the fact that no one seems to be buying anything at the moment.
I won’t bore you with the titles of what I sold anymore; I mean seriously who cares right? Suffice to say that I sold nine books at a total cost of $41.
Having done the disastrous sums, accounting for relisting fees, new listing fees and buying new stock – I am only left with $347.13 and about $152 to go before I reach my final goal of $500.
I’m feeling a bit gutted, like a fish with no stomach, like a cow in Dulce Texas, like Jar Jar Binx after having received the fax notifying him that he will not be reprising his role in the new JJ Abrams installment to the Star Wars series…
I’m pretty sure the culprit is that the more stock I list the larger my listing fees become and when that happens I either make more money than I spend or I lose money plain and simple.
I’m going to give it one more week and if I continue this trend of going lesswards then I might have to do something drastic and cap my listings at a certain number and as a friend recently suggested just focus on selling the stock I have rather than obtaining more.
Having said that I did go to a school gala today and couldn’t stop myself from spending $11 on new stock! But just before you role your eyes I did find a marvelous antique King James Bible, containing a personal inscription dated around the late 1800’s – for a dollar. You might remember that when I first started this series I sold a King James Bible for $25 and that one was published in the 60’s… In this case I’ve never handled an actual antique before; I might have to look into it further before listing it.
Finally last week I hinted at things to come as I prepare for my next mighty series – How to Turn $500 into $1000. Things are coming along, shall we say, frustratingly slow and yet painfully pleasantly… all I can say is - keep an eye on my Cleverly Devised Poetical Dictionary of Difficult Words! Hopefully that will whet your curiosity enough to keep you coming back…
So until next week then, I shall leave you with this ridiculous video, which happens to have been made by one of my brothers’ (the geography teacher) ex-students. (please feel free to correct the grammer in this sentence, I can’t recall whether the “s” is meant to go after “brother” or “teacher” let alone the placement of the apostrophe!)
Fare thee well…
Click Here to read Part Twenty Two in this series!
Click Here if you would like to follow my progress on Facebook!
Click Here to read this series from the beginning!
Click Here to read my awesome last series, Pimp My Twenty Bucks
Click Here to view my Trademe Listings
For some great money related articles please visit workingathomeinternet.com for some great monetary wisdom... see you there!
Come find me on YouTube!
Thanks to Felix, my ginger Rodentus Enemius I have a two and a half inch scratch marking the drumstick region of my thumb with its pain and bloody glory. I was trying to do him a favor by taking him to the vet but we never made it past the getting-him-into-the-cage stage as his back legs suddenly and miraculously turned into spinning lawn mower blades for my own special treatment of say-good-bye-to your-thumb pink face! (Sometimes Felix communicates with me through my own imagination so there’s a small chance I made that last part up). Nevertheless, there was nothing fake about me cancelling his vet appointment and swearing that he can die from whatever it was he was meant to be getting immunized against before I try putting him inside that cage again. Either that or I’m going to need one of those police shields you see used in riots, that and a large pair of chop sticks. He must have sensed my ferocity because he didn’t show his ginger locks again until after dinner time, which was just as well because he might have ended up on the menu.
Earlier this week I was sitting at my desk at work when all of a sudden I had this feeling I had entered the Jelly Dimension. Everything seemed to be wobbling. My desk, my chair my Jurassic Park style glass of rippling water all seemed to be shaking in anticipation of the T-Rex about to barge its way through my Projection Booth…
My first thought was that a really big truck must have been going past the Cinema but then, while I was still sitting there unconcerned about the new shaking world I found myself in, I realized that they don’t make trucks that long and it dawned on me this must be an earthquake. AN EARTHQUAKE?! I quickly jumped under my desk, and as I huddled under my dark wooden fortress I began to wonder how the rescue parties might find me in my little bubble under all the rubble until I realized my cell phone was comfortably sitting on top of the desk enjoying the moment with no concern at all. I made the decision to risk my life for my phone because being trapped in the toppled remains of a movie theatre without the internet is more than I could bear… except the “earthquake” had stopped and there was no point jumping under the desk anymore, even though I secretly wanted to on account of its sleepy possibilities.
Naturally I called my boss and neither he, nor any of the floor staff had felt anything. So much were they engrossed in their work, focused on the movie going public, that they didn’t take a moment to consider the earth moving beneath their feet, along with the roof (with me inside it) above their heads.
Having confirmed with geonet.co.nz that it was indeed the real deal I, along with the rest of Auckland, came to terms with the fact that I was being a great big girl’s blouse over the whole thing. The only casualties in the entire city were a garden chair and a sparrow, which died of natural causes completely unrelated to Auckland’s rendition of the Harlem Shake.
Incidentally I saw the so called Harlem Shake for the first time today on the internet. What a complete load of rubbish.
Having survived the ordeal, of both the Harlem Shake and Auckland’s great quake of 2013 I was left with a certain affinity for my fellow man and an appreciation for what I have against the things that I do not, like the $9 one customer still owes me from two weeks ago. I had waited five days for a payment that never came, deeming that to be a reasonable amount of time to pass before offering him a little nudge via the old email. He wrote back apologizing and that his internet banking wasn’t working and that he’d need to go to the bank in person blah blah blah…
I’m pretty patient with these sorts so I gave him ANOTHER five days and sent him another motivational message across the impersonal and non-threatening ether of the web… now I didn’t want to frighten the poor chap so I made my email a bit upbeat and positive, at least that’s what I thought I was doing:
Hi there
So um… yeah still no payment, what’s up with that?
Cheers
K
To which I received the reply:
What’s up with the?? Wow, really, gee I couldn’t make it to town on the only day off I have and now your circling me like a shark…
I told him that my having waited for ten days made me a very patient shark.
I’m actually waiting for a few AWOL payments and the thing I don’t understand is these missing buyers have been people with excellent feedback from other Trademe users… but then again I find myself less apt to leave bad feedback for fear they will return the favor…
The fact that I’m currently owed about $16 from these rogue traders however doesn’t help explain why I’ve gone backwards this week… I mean really backwards… I’ve gone so far backwards that my back has grown a face!
Maybe it’s been a combination of the moving earth, the cat with a lust for human thumbs and the fact that people find the Harlem Shake even remotely interesting that I seem to have lost over $40 in this week’s total? Or then again it’s likely due to the fact that no one seems to be buying anything at the moment.
I won’t bore you with the titles of what I sold anymore; I mean seriously who cares right? Suffice to say that I sold nine books at a total cost of $41.
Having done the disastrous sums, accounting for relisting fees, new listing fees and buying new stock – I am only left with $347.13 and about $152 to go before I reach my final goal of $500.
I’m feeling a bit gutted, like a fish with no stomach, like a cow in Dulce Texas, like Jar Jar Binx after having received the fax notifying him that he will not be reprising his role in the new JJ Abrams installment to the Star Wars series…
I’m pretty sure the culprit is that the more stock I list the larger my listing fees become and when that happens I either make more money than I spend or I lose money plain and simple.
I’m going to give it one more week and if I continue this trend of going lesswards then I might have to do something drastic and cap my listings at a certain number and as a friend recently suggested just focus on selling the stock I have rather than obtaining more.
Having said that I did go to a school gala today and couldn’t stop myself from spending $11 on new stock! But just before you role your eyes I did find a marvelous antique King James Bible, containing a personal inscription dated around the late 1800’s – for a dollar. You might remember that when I first started this series I sold a King James Bible for $25 and that one was published in the 60’s… In this case I’ve never handled an actual antique before; I might have to look into it further before listing it.
Finally last week I hinted at things to come as I prepare for my next mighty series – How to Turn $500 into $1000. Things are coming along, shall we say, frustratingly slow and yet painfully pleasantly… all I can say is - keep an eye on my Cleverly Devised Poetical Dictionary of Difficult Words! Hopefully that will whet your curiosity enough to keep you coming back…
So until next week then, I shall leave you with this ridiculous video, which happens to have been made by one of my brothers’ (the geography teacher) ex-students. (please feel free to correct the grammer in this sentence, I can’t recall whether the “s” is meant to go after “brother” or “teacher” let alone the placement of the apostrophe!)
Fare thee well…
Click Here to read Part Twenty Two in this series!
Click Here if you would like to follow my progress on Facebook!
Click Here to read this series from the beginning!
Click Here to read my awesome last series, Pimp My Twenty Bucks
Click Here to view my Trademe Listings
For some great money related articles please visit workingathomeinternet.com for some great monetary wisdom... see you there!
Come find me on YouTube!
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