The great bed giveaway of 2012

I’m moving in a week, so I decided to get rid of some stuff I don’t want/need any more. One of those things was a twin bed that has been sitting in my second bedroom not being slept in for awhile now. Its main purpose was to provide a place for my mother-in-law to sleep when she came to visit. Since I no longer have a mother-in-law, I figured it was superfluous and decided to get rid of it.

I wanted it to go fast, so I decided to list it on Freecycle. You know Freecycle, it’s that website/email group that lets people get rid of stuff they don’t want, the only catch being you have to be willing to part with it for free. Well, no trouble, I didn’t care about getting money for it, I just wanted it gone. So up it went on the list.

I got about six responses within a few hours. Hey, not bad, I thought. I’ll get rid of this thing in no time. I picked one of the responses and emailed the person, offering the bed. The lady promptly emailed me back and said she sure did want it, and we arranged a pick-up time. I was going to leave the bed outside my apartment and she was going to come by and pick it up.

Well, of course, it didn’t happen. To her credit, she did email me like a minute before I was supposed to leave and say to not leave the bed outside. But there was no explanation as to why, or when she’d like to reschedule. I emailed back, and got no response.

LATE that night, I got another email, saying “I can come by tomorrow early, before 8 am. Is that OK?” Well, I was at a casino playing poker, and had intended to stay there most of the night, so normally I’d say no to early morning appointments. But I want to get rid of this bed, so I email back that yes, tomorrow morning is fine.

Tomorrow morning comes, no bed lady. I’d stayed up all night and actually come home a bit earlier than planned in order to be there by 8 am.  It was 9 am before she finally contacted me to let me know she wasn’t coming, and that she didn’t want the bed anymore.

Super! Thanks a bunch.

So I go back to my email, and select someone else from the list. I fire off an email saying the bed is still available, and get a response back fairly quickly expressing enthusiastic desire for my stupid bed. OK, cool, let’s do this then! She says she can come around between 6:30 and 7:30. That’s cool, I’ll be here.

You know what happened. She didn’t show.

It wasn’t until the following day that I got an email from her, saying she’d be over around 7. I still don’t know if she just completely blew me off the previous day and then randomly rescheduled and expected me to be there (I was, thankfully, and she DID show finally, and I got rid of the bed) or if somehow we had miscommunicated and she’d never meant to come over the day before. I reread the email several times, though, and I’m pretty sure I just got blown off.

What’s with that, anyhow? I would never think of making an appointment to meet somebody, for any reason, and then just not show up. It’s incredibly rude. And if something came up, and I had to cancel or postpone, I’d make sure to inform the other person BEFORE the meeting time, not AFTER. Preferably well before, so the person can make other plans (or, in my case, follow through with plans I cancelled when the appointment was made.)

I’m not alone in experiencing this, either. My wife used to joke that the first rule of Craigslist is “the first person never shows up.” Apparently she never once offered something for sale on Craigslist and had the first person who emailed her asking about it actually show up to buy it. It always took two or three potential buyers before one would actually come over and buy the item. I just don’t get that. If I say I’m going to do something, I consider that a bond. Even if it’s something nobody will ever know I didn’t do, I still will almost never fail to follow through once I’ve committed. And I wouldn’t even think of wasting somebody else’s time like that.

Fucking rude-ass people.