Friday, April 4, 2008

Incidentally, How Does One Sell 50+ Boxes of 30-Year-Old Wool?

Writing Day: 3

Word Count: 7,477

I’m pretty happy with today’s writing progress, I actually wrote one very short story, start to finish, (800 words), and it leads in very nicely to the longer story I’m currently working on, (which currently accounts for the other 6,700 words. It’s gonna be a long one.)

Grandma Depressia called me today, asking if I’ve help her sell off all her excess wool, again. About half a year has gone by since my Auntie Flo took it to away to her home in the big city, where she said she could sell all of it to one big company. Depressia complained to me that she hadn’t come through.

Wow, surprise, surprise. Auntie Flo didn’t come through for you yet again. (I try hard not to be bitter with my Auntie Flo, really I do, but you know how for just about everyone there’s that one person that bring out the worst in you? Like you’re actually in a good mood and she opens her mouth and you just want to throw the kitchen table out the window and then open the fridge, tear up the cabbage, and then finally grab the roast from the fridge and run upstairs and fuck it help calm yourself down? Do you all have that person? I do. For me, it’s Auntie Flo.)

This morning my mother said to me,

“You’ll be glad to know your aunt isn’t coming this week-end. She has a date.”

So she’s coming. Just not here.

“Why are you bringing her up? I didn’t know she was planning on coming anyway. This is good news, though, to be sure.”

“She often doesn’t come when she says she will. It’s a five hour drive each way. It takes a lot out of her.”

“And thank god for that deterrent. The harder it is for her to get here, the better.”

“You are miserable, aren’t you?”

Ah yes, so back unto her not coming through on things, a short while ago she came and took a number of boxes filled with my grandma’s old wool.

In total, across three households and her space at the retirement lodge, we have 50 huge boxes of the stuff.

So while I listened to her babble on about Swiss and Japanese knitting machines and her daughter letting her down, and all the money she’s paying for storage (I believe she’s paying one family $50 a month to store 40 boxes of her crap. I think that’s pathetic), as I frankly, sort of tuned her out, (because most of what she has to say about it is irrelevant anyway), I wondered how on Earth I’d go about selling all this crap anyway.

My temptation would be to simply hop on eBay, and put it all into one giant auction and see what happens. I don’t imagine I’d get very much for it. I would probably charge $300 for S+H, since the only real way to move all of it is with a moving truck, or it could be negotiable if they want to make their own moving arrangements. The auction would probably close at under 50 bucks, and that would roughly be her net profit. A dollar a box, and honestly, I think that’s far more than it’s worth.

Here’s the irritating thing. She thinks this stuff is worth a fortune, and that it would be abusive to her if she did somehow make a profit on all this “premium wool” that she bought 30 years ago, and now reeks of moth balls.

Come on! That’s like saying that 1983 copy of E.T. for the Atari_2600 you own is still worth its retail value of, whatever it was worth in 1983. They had enough trouble trying to sell the game new. They actually had to bury surplus copies of the game in a landfill in New Mexico. How much do you think it’s worth now? They couldn’t even give that shit away, and the sad truth is, neither can my grandma. The wool is worthless.

Not that long ago, I finally convinced her to give it away, if only for her own health and sanity. I had arranged to give it all away to the mother of a friend of mine, but then Depressia reneged, a common reaction from her. (This is a trait she and Auntie Flo share.) She felt this woman had tried to cheat her. So truth be told, I don’t know if I want to try to make arrangements, just to have her cancel them later.

Actually, what I really want to do is move to another city, far, far away from all these crazy people.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

There is a HUGE community of knitters on blogger, and also on Etsy. For what it's worth. Maybe you could use that to get the word out, if you do try to sell it on the web.
I know there are organizations out there that do knitting for the homeless/premie babies/whatever- maybe she could give the yarn to charity and feel good about herself.
-ravens

Malice Blackheart said...

Hmm, that's a good tip. I'll have a look around. Thanks, Ravens.

Anonymous said...

She could claim the worth of the wool as a charitable donation too.
You might also want try craigslist and see what creepies come scheming around for it.
If you're gonna do it on ebay you should probably sell it by the bundle, charge a couple of bucks for the s&h. You could probably keep this going for a good 1/2 year. And the best part is you could call yourself self employed!
Malice Blackheart's Antique Wool Extravaganza shop on ebay! Depressia would feel good about getting a decent price for the wool, your parents would be off your back because they think you're getting into business, and you can avoid the hassles of so-called "real" employment! WIN-WIN!

spookygreentea said...

Aunt Flo...?

Real cute. ;)

Hm. I'm glad she's not coming to stay... Whenever she does I definitely just want to tackle her out a window, glass be damned.

And I'm sure it sounds terribly ungrateful (well, what the hell, I don't really care if it does...) but I hate the gifts she brings.
"No I don't want a makeup bag you got for free and you think is so unfreakingbelievably wonderful that you have to offload it on the next person of the female persuasion you see."

...So actually most of that quotation was subtext - but you get the general idea. Also, trying to get any sort of studying done when she is around is even more horrendously difficult than normal.