Adventures in Craigslisting

Don't worry, this story is PG. And that title isn't entirely true. It wasn't Craigslist but a Facebook garage sale type group. But here's the stupid story...

Grant is obsessed with our vacuum. Obsessed! He crawls to the closet door, will open the door if cracked, and rolls out the vacuum. If we're vacuuming, he will crawl right behind us to watch every second. He cries when we put it away. He loves it!

So I looked at some of the toy vacuums online. I mean, come on. How cute is this mini Dyson?!

http://amzn.com/B009386Q9O

But they all get terrible reviews, are expensive for a little toy and between Christmas and his birthday, Grant does not need another toy right now.

But a little toy vacuum came up on this garage sale site and I wanted it!

It was $6. Not bad. And she lived in the same town my sister does 17 miles away. Again, not bad, I don't mind that drive.

So the day when we meet comes and I find out she actually lives in the town North of where I thought I was going which is further away from me. Ugh. But, that's fine. It's Saturday, we have no plans and I already committed to this girl. (Um, I just looked up the mileage for this story and it was 29 miles one way! What was I thinking?!).

Chris did not like me going by myself. I hated to force Grant into his carseat for that long for all of us to go and I didn't want to send Chris alone on my ridiculous trip.

So Chris stayed home with Grant and I took a knife. Makes perfect sense.

I thought Chris was being silly and meeting up with a stranger you met online was totally fine, right? (Catfish!!! Manti Te'o!!!). The Facebook group is a little more personal than Craigslist because you have pictures. Then I remembered, this girl didn't have a picture! Her profile picture was Barbie! And her cover photo was Barbie's dream house. I should have known.

So then I started to panic a little. All kinds of crazy thoughts went through my head (too much Dexter!). But I still went on... and on and on. The drive was nuts. I thought I was in Oklahoma!

I get to our public meeting spot and wait. She's running late. She finally gets there. All is good. She's not a crazy murderer and I give her my $6 and I get a silly little vacuum for Grant. I didn't haggle ahead of time.

Then it takes me another 45 minutes to get home.

I clean it up and give it to Grant. He likes it ok I guess. It's nothing special and once he started playing with it, I noticed the sound is broken. It sounds like a broken record, so that's really annoying. (Maybe I should try changing the batteries?). It also doesn't stand up on its own. And the best part, on the bottom when I was cleaning it I noticed a price written in marker... $2.99! Wah, wah.

What a waste! Lesson learned. No more Craigslist for me!