Waiting on strangers

[The Mollusk]

I've just got out the other side of a situation which went from feeling urgent to annoying to so pathetically meaningless it became hilarious, but through all three phases of this situation, due to what I'm determined to believe is actual cause for grievance and not just me being a melt, I have been really put out and pissed off.

I've been waiting for someone from a Facebook sell or swap group to come round and collect a moisturising cream in exchange for some fruit/veg (it's a social media group thing, fuck knows). The cream is my fiancee's and it's her swap but she's gone out to see a friend, and since my plans cancelled and I'm gonna be at home for the evening, she asked me to do the swap if the other person was available, which they were. I agreed, but had last minute work come in today so had to rush my last job a bit to get home in time. The swapper was due to arrive between 6:30/7pm, I got home about 6:40, cool.

So I wait till about 7:30 and text fiancee asking her to message the swapper and see what the fucking shite she's playing at. Fiancee gets a vague reply "sorry running late, on way to Tesco will message when on the way to you". I'm feeling increasingly irritable, because I didn't want to start cooking/eating dinner for them to come round in the middle of it (I hate being interrupted and it was nagging me), before eventually giving in and frustratedly chucking some brown shite in the oven.

I needn't have worried about having dinner disrupted though!!! Because the person didn't arrive at my door until 8:35, well over an hour and half after they said they'd be here originally!!!!! I hurriedly snarfed beans and hash browns in the silence of my kitchen in case I didn't hear the door knock, like the worm that I am, crushed under the heel of subservient politeness, for this. FOR THE SWAP OF A FUCKIN FIVE QUID TUB OF FACE MILM, TWO HOURS OF MY FRIDAY EVENING.

Ah but it gets better. They send a fuckin 10 year old lad out the car to come knock on my door to get the milm. He just goes "for uhh, the cream" and hands to me - I swear to god - a bag of carrots and a 125g punnet of blueberries. I am actually sat here a full half hour after it happened laughing my head off. Parent just goes "cheers" vaguely out the window of the car at me and that's it, that's what I get. I had this big thing where I was gonna be like "WELL HELLO, this was a fun use of both of our evening wasn't it! A fiver!!! HAHAHAHAHA". I've had a couple of strong trappist beers and I was feeling a buzz, I would have had justifiable excuse to admonish this person. But I got the child, of course. I could bring myself to say nothing. I think I actually just grunted? A grunt in a dimly lit doorway, two men, one 34 and the other 10. A changing of hands, a tub of cream, some carrot. Probably the worst thing I've ever been involved in. I feel fucking dead. From the meeting time to the long wait to the forced dinner to the even longer wait to the final pathetic exchange, this has totally sucked for me. I'm not going to enjoy a single bite of this produce. Fucks sake.

[Butchers Blind]

It was never like this on SwapShop.

[The Mollusk]

Fuck Swap Shop, it wasn't even this bad on Wife Swap.

[Shit Good Nose]

Well there's no need to talk about my son like that, he's only 10 and thought he was doing a good deed.

[imitationleather]

That's a pretty funny situation when it's not happening to you.

[The Mollusk]

When I was 14 I met a girl on Yahoo! Chat and my parents drove me to Leicester to meet her. She took me out to see her friends, they were smoking weed, I was extremely nervous and anxious, never smoked before, not about to start here, and didn't say a lot at all. The two of us went back to her place and sat in her bedroom with her 6 year old sister and watched Space Jam while our two parents who had never met sat and talked about fuck knows what for three hours. It was wretched. This is kind of like that. The kid and me have endured similar stuff here that me and those parents went through 20 years ago. An absolute drag, unforgettable.

[imitationleather]

lol

Nothing like your parents trying to get you abused by an internet nonce so they get to appear on the Crime & Investigation channel.

[Captain Z]

When I was 14 I met a girl on Yahoo! Chat and my parents drove me to Leicester to meet her. She took me out to see her friends, they were smoking weed, I was extremely nervous and anxious, never smoked before, not about to start here, and didn't say a lot at all. The two of us went back to her place and sat in her bedroom with her 6 year old sister and watched Space Jam while our two parents who had never met sat and talked about fuck knows what for three hours. It was wretched. This is kind of like that. The kid and me have endured similar stuff here that me and those parents went through 20 years ago. An absolute drag, unforgettable.

28, you were.

[Lisa Jesusandmarychain]

In reference to the Ops post, this is how life is lived nowadays.I don't know whether to find it all very chilling, or bizarre, or what. The " Swap Shop" comparison is apt. But Keith Chegwin is long since gone. I remember reading of his death as I ate my disconsolate meal in a barren restaurant in the capital city of Vietnam. At least this absurd exchange , which the late Sean Lock would have been delighted to have scripted as part of that sit- com what he wrote has done nothing to promote dyslexia amongst an innocent young generation as the naming of that fucking dinosaur mascot " Posh Paws" did ( " It's the name of our top programme backwards!" declared a looking slightly different Noel Edmonds. NO IT FUCKING ISN'T.)

[Sebastian Cobb]

The bloke my letting agents send round to check the gas is good for this. Last year he turned up several weeks late but this year he surpassed himself by arranging to turn up on the 2nd of june then finally coming round this week.

Actually an alright guy and I can't bring myself to moan about it because in general I've got a fairly cushty 'hands off' thing going as far as renting goes.

[Ferris]

Why are you trading face cream for tesco carrots? You set yourself up for this. It was always going to end this way.

got a fairly cushty 'hands off' thing going as far as renting goes.

Worth its weight in gold. Our old landlord didn't know our names, forgot to increase rent for years at a time, magic.

[Butchers Blind]

Should of at least jizzed in the face cream while you were waiting. Even funnier if it was for the 10 year old's eczema.

[El Unicornio, mang]

I offered to sell my guitar to a guy on Craigslist a few years ago when I lived in Orlando, but he was really paranoid about meeting me at my house so insisted I meet him outside my local 7-11. So we set up a time, and I get there and I'm waiting and waiting, so I text him and he says "sorry I'm late, at a BBQ". Wait some more, bearing in mind this is Florida in summer so I'm standing in 90F heat outside a 7-11 with a guitar in a giant Fender box. I don't exactly remember the other texts after that but it was going back and forth with him asking all kinds of questions and just generally coming across as really paranoid and/or weird. His last text I remember was "hmmm" and I never heard anything again. I do remember a gold pickup truck that matched the description of what he said his looked like parked at the gas station directly opposite for a while. I wondered later if he was watching me from there and decided it looked dodgy since I just appeared to have a big box, and there were some dodgy types hanging around outside the 7-11 (as per always) which he might have thought were going to jump him when he got the cash out. It remains a mystery to this day...

[Ferris]

Was it a nice guitar?

[El Unicornio, mang]

Epiphone Dot, worth about $500. Not a super expensive guitar but quite nice.

[Sebastian Cobb]

I offered to sell my guitar to a guy on Craigslist a few years ago when I lived in Orlando, but he was really paranoid about meeting me at my house so insisted I meet him outside my local 7-11. So we set up a time, and I get there and I'm waiting and waiting, so I text him and he says "sorry I'm late, at a BBQ". Wait some more, bearing in mind this is Florida in summer so I'm standing in 90F heat outside a 7-11 with a guitar in a giant Fender box. I don't exactly remember the other texts after that but it was going back and forth with him asking all kinds of questions and just generally coming across as really paranoid and/or weird. His last text I remember was "hmmm" and I never heard anything again. I do remember a gold pickup truck that matched the description of what he said his looked like parked at the gas station directly opposite for a while. I wondered later if he was watching me from there and decided it looked dodgy since I just appeared to have a big box, and there were some dodgy types hanging around outside the 7-11 (as per always) which he might have thought were going to jump him when he got the cash out. It remains a mystery to this day...

The bit I don't get is he shot himself in the cock by re-arranging the sale to a more 'jumpable' place... if someone wanted to sell you something but refused to let you go to their house and wanted to meet in a car park it would be either stolen or a set-up.

[jobotic]

How many carrots did you want for the guitar?

[Brian Freeze]

Worth it's weight in blueberries.

I would definitely give the carrots a bloody good scrub before doing anything with them.

[Ferris]

Epiphone Dot, worth about $500. Not a super expensive guitar but quite nice.

I have one! Very nice guitars, worth a bit more than that I thought (?) though mine was made in Korea, I think they're made in the Chinese factory since early 00's so maybe that alters the price a bit.

Anyway, sorry to derail the face-cream-for-blueberries thread.

[El Unicornio, mang]

The bit I don't get is he shot himself in the cock by re-arranging the sale to a more 'jumpable' place... if someone wanted to sell you something but refused to let you go to their house and wanted to meet in a car park it would be either stolen or a set-up.

I guess he just wanted to be in a public place (it's at a pretty busy intersection) particularly as there had been some cases in the news around that time of people being murdered after meeting for Craigslist sales.

That Redbox outside the 7-11 is where I was standing like a lemon. Also yes that is a signal box painted as a TARDIS on the corner. Amazed it's still like that in 2021, 10 years after I was there. It also had "Bad Wolf" painted on it for a while.

I have one! Very nice guitars, worth a bit more than that I thought (?) though mine was made in Korea, I think they're made in the Chinese factory since early 00's so maybe that alters the price a bit.

Yeah they do vary. Mine was the sunburst one.

Sorry yeah, further derailment...

[bgmnts]

At least you can have some nice blueberry and carrot soup.

[Avril Lavigne]

I've been waiting for someone from a Facebook sell or swap group to come round and collect a moisturising cream in exchange for some fruit/veg

I love you man but everything about this screams bad scenario. For what it's worth I also spent a shit awkward early date watching Space Jam.

[who cares]

I was moving house, and I had a full length mirror I didn't want that had come with the flat. Sold it cheap and quick, as I didn't want it to be binned. It was a decent large mirror.

I gave the woman who bought it a window of an hour to collect it next day. She texted just before this time arrived, -oh sorry I can't do it today can i do tomorrow? I arranged a time for her on the Thursday of that week, but I knew then it was fucked. Just a sense you get from selling a lot. She blew out that appointment and we made another. This went on for a couple of weeks, and then I didn't reply to one of her texts after the fifth or sixth rescheduled appointment. The long and short of it- the mirror got binned and she texted about two weeks later- Have you got my mirror?

Complete waste of a good mirror. I was annoyed because the one thing I'd been trying to avoid- throwing it away- had happened due to this pro timewaster. I sell a lot and I do my best to avoid pick-ups. Hate them. Even if it goes smoothly I resent having to wait around for someone.

[Echo Valley 2-6809]

The cream is my fiancee's and it's her swap but she's gone out to see a friend...

I'd be interested to hear her reaction when she gets back, because I suspect this is the first stage of her and her friends gaslighting you into insanity and giving her all your money and everything you own. You're just too much in love to see it.

[Ferris]

Yeah they do vary. Mine was the sunburst one.

Mine is red but I secretly prefer the sunburst finish. Don't tell anyone.

pro timewaster.

What do they get out of it you reckon? Are they just hopeless individuals or what?

[The Mollusk]

Yeah see this is the thing, overall it was more a waste of my evening than theirs, but fucks sake man what are you doing blasting away two hours of your day arsing about to accommodate the collection of something just for the monetary saving of about £2.50? It's not even remotely worth it, getting in the car, going to the shop, the amount of effort is so feebly unjustifiable. WHY.

[who cares]

What do they get out of it you reckon? Are they just hopeless individuals or what?

I went to sleep pondering this and woke up remembering an old Spencer Brown bit. He likes this girl, so they go on a few dates, and it's going well, but then she says, I'm sorry, I'm not looking for a relationship, I'm between boyfriends, and I've been feeling quite low about myself as a person...

Then he goes for a job, and he gets through the first round of interviews, and they like him in the second; and finally he gets the position. They take him into a room and the main interviewer says - I'm sorry, but there is no job. We're between contracts at the moment, and... we've lost confidence in ourself as a company...  we're not actually looking for anyone

it was funny when he told it.

So with the mirror girl I think it was vanity, just fucking someone around to feel... wanted or important or something. But I've had a guy jerking me about lately over some antique stuff I'm selling- and I think with him, he just wants to be annoying enough that I get exasperated and sell him the stuff for pennies so that he'll fuck off. It's more of a strategy. Most timewasters, probably the first category.

tl:dr- they're cunts

[Lisa Jesusandmarychain]

Katrina and the Waves co.....oh, It's far too late for that.

[who cares]

Yeah see this is the thing, overall it was more a waste of my evening than theirs, but fucks sake man what are you doing blasting away two hours of your day arsing about to accommodate the collection of something just for the monetary saving of about £2.50? It's not even remotely worth it, getting in the car, going to the shop, the amount of effort is so feebly unjustifiable. WHY.

I don't know, they sound a bit mad. Are blueberries a currency now? If they are you got stiffed. You can buy a pack for about a quid. Carrots are even cheaper.

I reckon you should take some extra steroids and rip their car in half [nb]hmm, haven't thought about small_world for a while[/nb]

[Sebastian Cobb]

I was once late to collect some speaker stands but that's because whoever borrowed the co-wheels Renault Zoe before me didn't put it back on charge so I had to wait about half an hour for the fucker to charge back up.

No shade on anyone here but I've bought the odd item off Gumtree and every time it's been like pulling teeth trying to set up purchase of an item, I get the sellers might have already dealt with some knobheads before I spoke to them though.