What Can Be Learned via Facebook Marketplace

 

purveyor - noun - a person who sells or deals in particular goods (Google).

I'm the sort of person who fights the impulse to lapse into a dilatory mindset by thinking and acting way in advance of a due date. Despite wanting to live in the moment, I often find that if I do, Time eats and digests me, and I wind up in the belly of a stressful situation, such as moving. Next year, I am planning to relocate across the country. Rather than wait until a month before the actual transition, I am selling off a lot of items I have accumulated for years in my present residence in order to lighten the load and save a few dollars. How? Through Facebook Marketplace, which I am told is the only way to go. 

If you do not consider yourself a purveyor of any kind (I, on the other hand, have been a pro at selling everything, including myself, since I was four), you may be a bit squeamish initially. I can totally understand as the worst part of the process is dealing with charlatans who claim they are interested, commit to buying, tell you they will show up with cash at your door at 8 a.m. and don't. Indeed, like many often do, they wind up with the Fickle Finger of Fate Award instead of your thirty-year-old FAX machine. And you, of course, are out twenty dollars. 

Then there is the product that you post that everyone seems to want, but doesn't care to own. In my case, it is a Chucky doll, the grotesque, toddling horror from the classic horror movie Child's Play, which premiered decades ago. I have had four hundred Chucky fans click on my post, a dozen tell me they are definitely interested in owning the doll, yet I still haven't sold it. Go figure. Maybe the moral is never to trust people who obsess over symbols of evil? 

Conversely, there are moments of unexpected triumph, which serve to keep me in the capricious game. One came when I sold my junior, folding pool table to a sweet family of recent immigrants who were so ebullient at the prospect of playing billiards in their own home that they left me feeling just as enthusiastic about no longer having the same luxury. Interestingly enough, the entire transaction took place within a day, making it the easiest transfer of property on record albeit the table almost didn't fit into their SUV. 

In summary, what I have learned from being a purveyor on Facebook Marketplace is basically that people will be people. There are the good, the bad, the ugly. There are the kind, the committed, the rude, the disingenuous. I could go on and on, but I won't. What I will do despite the positives and negatives is continue to purvey until I am down to a reasonable amount of goods that I can fit into a Pod that will cost me under 10K. I'm glad I'm giving myself a year in advance. And I'm glad that I am giving human nature a fighting chance at coming through for me. 

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