I interrupt your regularly scheduled Monday so I can bitch about a hipster who I think may be currently plotting my demise.  But first, let’s back up a little.

Originally this weekend I had fun horsey plans scheduled, but I had to cancel.  To make myself feel better about originally cancelled plans, I made different fun horsey plans which… as you guessed, were cancelled.  Therefore much of my weekend was spent with me trying my best to stick to my diet while lounging around with Pascale and watching Doomsday Preppers.

The rest of my weekend was spent getting my entire living room cleaned, scrubbed and sold on Craigslist.  My mom is (oh so nicely) sending us her living room set, so I have to make room literally for the new furniture as well as try and collect some extra cash for a chair and finishing accents for the room.

Now, I live in a house with three dogs and three of the items I am selling are upholstered.  I know nobody wants to buy furniture that hasn’t been cleaned, so I spent hours scrubbing, vacuuming, Oxycleaning and Pet febreezing all of my upholstered furniture before I listed it on Craigslist.  One of these items was a fairly cheap ottoman, which I put up for $40.

Thus begins my story.

So I place ottoman up with really beautiful state of the art photography.  I mean, you can see how much I have photoshopped this bad boy to make it glow.

Actually no, it’s just a slightly dingy cheap off white ottoman.

So waify hipster chick emails me around 2:30pm saying she wants to see (and pick up!) said ottoman and can come by after 3:00pm.  I email her my address, and say that will be great.

I wait and wait, and nothing happens.  Around 5pm, I think I get an email from someone else asking about said ottoman.  This is my fatal flaw of the day, because it’s actually hipster chick emailing from a different email address.  I respond to her original email and say, “Hey you need to come get this thing because other people are asking about it.” but the other person is actually her.  Bear with me, this gets even more confusing.

She says she can come by at 8:00 or 9:00pm.  I say 9:00pm, because Tim will be home then and I will have time to go to the grocery store and get dinner.  She says okay.

I get a text at 7:15pm when I am making dinner, saying she is 15 minutes away.  I say we need to do this quicky, since it’s a lot earlier than she originally said.  She shows up, and immediately is terrified of my ancient one eyed Boston Terrier.  I put up offensive creature, and show her the amazing ottoman.

She asks if my animals have been on the ottoman, because she is highly bothered (not allergic, but bothered) by pet dander.  I say no, they don’t sit on it (which is the truth… it’s usually covered in crap so they can’t sit on it).  Hipster chick waffles about it not being as clean as she wanted (it had minor stains and scuffs) and blah blah she would need to buy a steam cleaner to clean it and blah blah.   While hipster chick waffles, I stand there and say nothing (remember this, it’s important later).  She makes no decision, and eventually I say I can reduce the price if she likes.  Hipster chick offers $30, which I accept (would have taken $20 or free… just get this thing out of my house) and we carry it out to her car.  Done deal.

Not a done deal.

I get the following email:

do you still have that person interested in your ottoman? I would like to bring this back to you to sell it to them. I didn’t realize how much pet dander & pet smell is on the couch. It is actually making me pretty sick. I drove home w/ it & got sick in the car. I can not bring the ottoman inside my house & I’m almost positive I’ll get even more sick from cleaning it

I’ve never asked a seller for a refund on Craiglist before, but I just had no idea there would be this much smell or dander from the pets. It is not the hair, just the stuff you don’t see. I should’ve asked you beforehand but assumed the ad would say. I couldn’t tell the smell or how much it would affect me until I got it in the car. I’ve not had that strong of a reaction to a piece of furniture before, & I’m positive it’s from the pets.

After receiving this email, I get really annoyed.  I reply after bitching about it for twenty minutes, and I go into a lot of detail with my response which is “No, sorry.  I don’t have room for it.”

So then I get another email.

I understand but surely you were going to have it until you sold it agin, though. So I’m confused. (Yes, I had it until I sold it to you…) You said you had other interested buyers. (Which was you emailing me from your twin address?) As I recall, I responded to your post w/in a few hours, so I imagine you’ll have plenty of time to sell it. Honestly, I felt pressured when I was at your house. (Pressured by me offering to sell it to you for less money?) I don’t feel I was told the whole story or that the ad said everything – especially about the pets. (You literally saw my pets while you were looking at this exquisite piece of furniture) I want to believe that was on accident & that you didn’t intend to dupe me. But the fact that you won’t even be willing to take it back to sell to your other interested buyers makes me think that might be a possibility. I really hope not.

This is really an unusual request. I have never once asked for a refund for anything on Craiglist & I’ve bought & sold many things for maybe close to a decade. (That’s because if you want to get refunds on an item, you buy them for full price in a store) I want to trust that buyers & sellers will be honest & do fair business. I feel like this situation warrants a refund, otherwise I wouldn’t ask for it. I’m a responsible person & I know I was partly responsible as a buyer in this situation, but I don’t want this to be a ‘Buyer’s Beware’ scenario where I’m afraid to buy anything again b/c of it. & I don’t think you’re that type of person, either. (Yes, I sure would hate to scare your waify afraid of Boston Terriers 90 lb self from using Craigslist in the future…) If it were me, I would probably take it back b/c of how unusual it was & how little time you had it up.

There was a bit more, but it’s not important.  This is the point where I started to see red and Tim took over my phone and exchange.  He emailed waify hipster chick back and said that we cannot take the ottoman back.  She can put it on the curb/trash/whatever, and if she sends us her address we will mail her a check.

We really would.  I don’t mind giving this crazy person her money back, but I need all furniture out of my house as opposed to in it… and I also never want to see her again.  Because she’s crazy, and because I might punch her.

It’s been about an hour since the last email, so my guess is she’s either too scared to give out her address for a refund or she’s making a voodoo doll of me and my pets.  I’m still pissed off, but mainly because I have two more expensive items to sell and I can’t even begin to predict where else the Craigslist crazy train will go.

Have you ever been stalked by a tiny hipster in black rose print skinny jeans?  Should I just be happy she’s too small to successfully murder me?

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