Thursday, July 14, 2022

The Truck



 Tim has a terrible habit of accumulating things with motors. A few years back he bought a 1982 squarebody GMC truck, and he loved that truck until ~squirrel!~ he found a 1982 Chevy squarebody truck that he liked even better. 


He's been talking about selling the other truck for some time now, but what I noticed is that while he talked about it, he didn't. Like I said, it was just a little thing that I noticed.

Well, today, he came in and announed that he needed me to take pictures of his truck and put it on marketplace for him. 

So I did. I did not put our phone number on it, figuring that if anyone messaged, I could provide our phone number privately. 

And, I am not kidding...I published that advertisement, and within minutes my smart phone chat app was pinging like an old fashioned pinball machine. I began private messaging our phone number and the phone began ringing off the receiver. (Yes. We are dinosaurs. We have a land line.) 

After providing our phone number about 30 times, I began to get nervous. I began to message people that it was very likely sold, but that we'd get back to them tomorrow afternoon and let them know for sure. While I was responding to one message right after another, Tim walked in with a wild eyed look. "Message this guy with our address," he said. The phone rang again, and he left the room with the phone to answer more questions. 

So I messaged the guy with our address and let him know that we were fielding a lot of calls and to call before he came so that he didn't waste a trip. "I'm on my way," came the immediate response. "It's a 45 minute drive and I've got the cash in my hand." 

I returned to answering the messages as they came in. 'The truck is probably sold, but we will let you know for sure by tomorrow at noon,' I typed, over and over and over again.  The messages were coming in quick enough that I resorted to copying and pasting the message, just trying to keep up with them.

Tim walked back in the office. "Mark the truck as pending," he said, 

I stared at him. "We can't do that!" and he wanted to know why. I said, "We've got a fellow half way into a 45 minute drive. We can't just sell it out from under him." Tim said, "Well. I promised it to someone else." And he got that stubborn look. 

"You told me to send this man our address, and you did that about 20 minutes ago. He gets first crack because he's driving here right now."

He decided there was no sense in bickering about it until we saw whether the kid actually showed up and whether or not he actually wanted it. 

Meanwhile, he went back to the phone calls, one right after another. I went back to answering the messages, one right after another. 

Long story short, the kid got here and he took the truck. All that was left was to call the other guy who thought he was buying it at 11 am tomorrow. 

In case you did not know this little factoid, men take potential purchases of 1982 trucks very seriously indeed. He was pretty upset. 

By the way, the truck was sold within one hour and 15 minutes of placing the ad.



31 comments:

  1. Wow. I hope you didn't sell it too cheaply.

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    Replies
    1. It was a good deal, but all Tim wanted was what he had paid for it.

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    2. The are mean looking machines. I can understand how they desirable.

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  2. I have had similar experiences with market place. It is so hard to keep up with who was first. Stress to the max. I think Tim can do it all next time!

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    Replies
    1. I don't have a lot of experience on Market Place. I usually just place it on the local sites. This actually scared me a little. We had people two hours away contacting us to come look at it.

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  3. Haha my gosh!! But I gotta admit, there's something cool about a 1982 truck--wish we could have seen a pic! πŸ˜„♥️πŸ‘

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    Replies
    1. PS This was Apachedug, not Anonymous!

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    2. Yep. Something cool about them. That's what Tim keeps telling me...

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  4. Wow! Hope Mr. Tim has learned how "placing an ad" works for the next item he sells. Linda in Kansas

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  5. The truck sounds like it was a beauty?

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    Replies
    1. For $2500, you don't get a beauty. You get a good running truck that needs some prettying up. The beauty truck was 5 times that price. It doesn't need prettying up. The prettying up people go nuts for a truck like ours, we have discovered.

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  6. Replies
    1. We were both pretty rattled to be sure. We've never had something like this happen before.

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  7. This post stressed me out. First you called me a dinosaur since I have a landline and then you tackled my worst nightmare, dealing with selling something through social media that a lot of people wanted. I'm on your side. I always say the first person who places the cash in my hand gets first crack.

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    Replies
    1. Well, fellow dinosaur, all that pinging was just crazy. I finally went out to grab some fast food for supper. My phone pinged the whole way there and back. We were so busy, we completely forget William's drum lesson until it was too late.

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  8. Good thing for Tim that you know what you are doing on that Marketplace! Congrats on the fast sale!

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    Replies
    1. I didn't know what I was doing. Neither did Tim. First timers, both of us.

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  9. It's amazing there's such demand for an old pickup. But my brother loves old pickups and I have a feeling he'd have been competing with your other callers if he'd known about this deal!

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    Replies
    1. Your brother and my husband would probably get along just fine.

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  10. Well that was quick, but … well that was quick. I leave it there. πŸ˜€

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  11. Phew, it's over. Save the occasional hopeful phone call.

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  12. I tried selling winter tires last October on facebook marketplace. It was awful. First of all, I know nothing about tires and all these guys kept asking questions. Then Jack was taken into care and life feel apart. Finally we dragged the tires out onto the driveway and told some guy to just come get them. I didn't care at that point.

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  13. Very nice looking trucks though.

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  14. I placed the ad, but Tim talked to them. I know nothing about these trucks.

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  15. I wish I'd got that type of reaction when I tried to sell a TV cabinet five years ago. I still have it taking up space in my shed. it's older style and huge, so nobody wants it.

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    Replies
    1. Pro tip: next time put it in the bed of a squarebody truck

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