Queen of the Cheapies

New on my list of passing fads and shenanigans is my membership in FreeCycle. It's part of my efforts to stop being so damn wasteful and lessen our household's ecological footprint, and all that. For those unfamiliar, FreeCycle is a grass roots movement of sorts, localized to various cities and regions, exclusively for the purpose of giving away and receiving free stuff from others in your area. Things range from old magazines to boxes to lawn mowers and grills to clothes. I originally joined looking for baby things, but my summer project has become to declutter our claustrophobia-inducing house. And because I'm a huge gas whore, I don't want to drive across town to drop things off at the Salvation Army. So if some crazy cheapie wants to drive to my house and take my stuff, hey, that's cool.

But the more involved I've become, the more I have realized that the majority of people patrolling a web site for free stuff are, for lack of a better word, FLAKES. About a week ago I cleaned out our -- no joke -- foot-tall stack of magazines in the bathroom. The majority of them were mind-numbing supermarket tabloids that A subscribed me to while I was pregnant, but heck, why not, I put them up on FreeCycle. Within hours I had a lady interested in them. I gave her my address, told her to come by whenever, they'd be on the porch waiting for her. She never showed.

The next day I had an email from her telling me she'd driven up and down our [relative short cul-de-sac] street and couldn't find our house. I e-mailed back a Google map and a very, very, VERY detailed description of our house. There is no other house on the street even close to the description I gave. I tried to be nice, and told her that I'd leave the magazines out again for her. She wrote back and said she'd be by that night. Again she flaked out on me.

Morning after that I get another e-mail from her LAYING INTO ME and losing her proverbial shit, telling me how she doesn't appreciate being led on a wild goose chase for a house that doesn't exist because THERE ABSOLUTELY IS NO HOUSE NUMBER 2014 ON OUR STREET. I was told I am rude and cruel and condescending (because how dare I send her a map trying to help her out).

I e-mailed her back and said, "Um, the address is 2012. As I mentioned in two previous e-mails." I even forwarded the e-mails to her, highlighting where I mentioned the address correctly. If this psychotic woman wanted to see condescending, well by gum, she was going to get it. And I told her not to bother because I threw the magazines away. So there.

Did I mention all of this was over a stack of old magazines where the content is hardly worth the ink to print it on?

She never responded. I'd be a little worried that someone so unstable has my home address, but I doubt she'd be able to find it even knowing the correct address. Idiot.

I've given away a few other random things with little to no incident. I leave the things on the porch and tell people that I won't be home for one reason or another, just because I can't look people in the eye who are taking my random shit. I just can't. That, and after my incident with Magazine Lady, you never know what kind of freaks you're dealing with. And I'm home alone most of the day with an infant. Safety first, ya'lls.

I got A a new grill for Father's Day and we put his decrepit, P.O.S., rusting grill on FreeCycle. I got an e-mail from some guy wanting to know if it included a gas tank, how many BTU's, and if I could send a picture, among a few other requests for information that I've forgotten. I mean, DUDE, seriously, it's a free grill. If you're chasing after a free grill, you really can't be too picky. I fought the urge to send him back a response telling him to suck a dick. I just ignored him.

But I love the god-like feeling I get when I post something being offered, then sit and wait for the response e-mails to come flooding in. If you don't say please, I don't respond. If you misspell, I don't respond. Damnit, if I'm going to be giving away my half-used bottles of Bath and Body Works body sprays and lotions, they are going to go to whomever appeals to me the most! For that brief time, I play god. These people's desires hang in the balance. I have what they want, and they must come to me to get it. Muahahahaha...

Yeah. This is what my days have become.