More Sales

Today I am my hero.

A couple of days ago, one of my Amazon items sold, a used Gameboy Advance Berenstain Bears game. I was particularly glad to get rid of that one because another seller and I were constantly undercutting each other's price by a penny. So now that's done. Ten bucks.

Then while I was sitting there reading that message, I got ANOTHER one! A set of pre-teen horse books sold, Winnie the Horse Gentler. I had bought Maryanne all eight of the books. She read them all but hated them because they had a distinct Christian conservative bent. She referred to them as "Winnie the Anti-Abortion Activist". Now, think what you might about the pro-choice/pro-life debate, I think we can all agree that active and graphic discussion of the topic probably does not belong in a book aimed at pre-teen horse lovers. Maryanne wrote some scathing reviews on the series accordingly.

Anyway, there were eight books in the series, but we only had seven. When Dan's car gave up the ghost and he cleaned it out before it was hauled off, he left book #8 in the car. Nevertheless, I posted it on Amazon under the listing for the set of all eight books, shouted in capital letters that one book was missing, and then priced the set at around $20, making it still a great bargain despite the missing book. And it sold! So there's another twenty bucks, which is especially delicious since we hated those books and the only other alternative was to donate them (which we were loathe to do given the subtext) or pitch them (which we are always loathe to do because it's environmentally unfriendly).

But the real reason I am my hero today is that this morning I saw that my Gameboy Advance Scrabble Blast program had sold for THIRTY DOLLARS! Still in the original shrink wrap, this was one of a stack of programs I had acquired for free when my kids first started playing Gameboy, before they transitioned to the DS. So it was clear they were never going to play it. I got it for free from Scholastic Book Clubs using points acquired from books purchased.

So I sold a Gameboy program no one had ever used and no one was ever going to use which I had gotten for free for $30!! And that is why I am my hero today.

Now I just have to pack it up and ship it out. Packaging materials are pricier than you would think. Fortunately, I have a huge (as in "can not be overstated" huge) pile of packaging material in my garage. As an avid (rabid?) Amazon shopper, I get boxes all the time. And as an environmentalist, I can't just throw them away. So I keep them. (Hoard them?) Then every now and then, I post the larger boxes on the Celebration Front Porch as "free moving boxes" and they magically disappear from my driveway. Using that same system, I found Jan, who sells on eBay for a living. Now whenever my pile of smaller boxes gets too huge, I call Jan, who is only too happy to haul off all I've got.

And despite my attempt at restraint, my Amazon shopping continues. There's the gluten-free food, for one. But little things always come up. Maryanne has seven (!) books she has to read over the summer for upcoming high school classes and I had to purchase five of them. It wasn't even optional, meaning she couldn't just borrow them from the library (always her inclination). She had to write in three of the books and the teacher who assigned another three books insisted that the students buy them.

Maryanne in general has progressed further than I have. I'm a vegetarian; she's a vegan. I don't want animals harmed; she's an active animal rights activist. I try not to spend too much money; she reprimands me whenever I spend any. Sigh.

P.S. You've probably noticed by now that I put in links to items that I am clearly not recommending. I like the visual. In other words, I'm doing it for the picture!