the great sell-off

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In 2002, I bought a cheapo placeholder dinette set for my new Metamuville home. It somehow made it to 2017, but it will make it no farther. I've been ruthlessly unloading stuff. The more cubic feet it occupies, the more likely it's staying here. Everything's going into pods. I'm a pod person now.

This has meant the return of my favorite species, the Craigslidiot, into my life. "20 pound gold brick for $3," my ad could read. "Will you take 75 cents?" eight people would respond. "How about a trade for my chainsaw? It worked in 2009."

Those people are easily enough ignored, but then, inevitably, a few of them make it into my home.

"You want some boxes to use as padding?" I said. "Nah," said the guy throwing 11 pieces of free-range metal furniture into the back of his truck. At least he had shame enough not to call and complain after running them through the cheese-grater that was his ride to South Carolina.

"You seriously don't want to ship that TV on its back. Glass has a low tensile strength. Ship it vertically," I said to deaf ears a mere hour before the guy wrote to complain that the clearly defective screen had cracked.

"The chairs disassemble like this," I said, but I was waved off right before the guy ripped the leather on my door jamb, which was substantially narrower than what he was carrying. "FUCK!" he yelled at the gods who were clearly out to get him.

Stupid gods.