Today on A Free Man: More country than punk
Well, things that seem too good to be true generally are and so it was with freecycling. There is always a catch and the freecycling catch is that yesterday afternoon I found myself immersed in freegan melodrama.
It all revolved around the dog crate - the container we used for Timmins’ trip to the UK. From work, I sent an e-mail around to the legion of people that were after the crate saying that after 2:00 the first person who turned up would be the proud owner of a dog crate. I planned to talk to Dr. O’C a little later and explain the deal to her in case someone showed up slightly early. Well, almost instantaneously - and certainly before I had a chance to call home - the first person came and took the crate away. A little cheeky, but fine. Done.
Not so much. Then, and still well before the 2:00 start time, Dr. O’C got a call from a frantic gentleman who wanted the crate because his dog was flying to Hong Kong tomorrow. Due to some kind of complication, his god shipping crate had fallen through. She, wisely, passed him on to me. I feel the guy’s pain, because dog shipping is fraught with problems - first hand experience. Here is our textual conversation as the day progressed.
Freek: Hello, please can I have your dog cage? (Yes, he said cage.)
CDV: I’m sorry, the crate has been taken.
[Slightly later]Freek: Hi, I need to send my dog to hong kong tomorrow. I order a cage on line they told me they have got this size in stock. I cant do anything now. Do you think i can have your cage? thanks
CDV: I’m really sorry, but the crate has been taken.
Freek: Please let me know whether i can have the cage. I can’t do anything when airline told me they dont have that size box last mins
CDV: (Trying a different tack) A man has come and taken away the crate. I’m sorry.
Freek: OK i don’t mind pay for it.
CDV: (Maybe if I use his language?). I do not have a cage for your dog. A man has taken the cage. The cage now belongs to the man.
Freek: Can i have his number? My dog need to fly tomorrow.
At which point my patience was spent and I decided to leave it - just ignore the man. Seeing the humor in the situation. I shared this exchange with Dr. O’C, a huge fan of other people’s melodrama, and she reminded me how much of a pain in the ass it was to get our dog from the U.S. to Britain. Everything went wrong. Ultimately, I had to fly on short notice from London back to St. Louis, drive to Columbia, pick up the damned dog, drive to Chicago and put him on the plane. I turned up to O’Hare with the wrong size cage, err crate, for my dog and had to buy one with less than an hour to go before the deadline. It was a nightmare.
If you know me, I’m not the kind of person who likes to get up in other people’s business. I prefer to live and let live and my original inclination had been to do just that. But now guilt, that great motivator started to creep into my head. So, against my better judgment, I called the original dog crate freek - the early bird who had taken the cage. I had to call him a couple of times to get through. I explained to him the quandary in which the Hong Kong dog cage freek found himself. I related my experience with transcontinental dog moving - how hard it can be. I told him that Hong Kong Dog Cage Freek would pay for the crate.
He was unswayed, “Well, I’m sorry but I got the crate for my friend. He has a wolf and he’s having some, err, problems. He really needs the crate.”
As much as I wanted to know the answer to a few questions (What kind of problems? What is he going to do with the crate? How the fuck do you get a wolf in southern England?) I just had to leave it there.
Freecycling - a gateway into other folks’ dramas.
Radiohead’s “Hail to the Thief” is available from Amazon
8 responses so far ↓
1 Hsien Lei // Mar 21, 2008 at 1:22 pm
What a nightmare! I’ve stayed away from Freecycle because I don’t want strangers to come to my house and pick up stuff. Now I know how strange these strangers can be!
Hsien Lei’s last blog post..So-Called Math Education
2 arizaphale // Mar 21, 2008 at 1:31 pm
What a great guy to even try and get the crate back for the other fellow. Oh no, wait it was Sinead’s idea….
Also, interesting typo in the 3rd para…his ‘god’ shipping crate???? Confused me momentarily but I see, he must be smuggling religious artifacts out of Oxford. Probably easier than wolves.
arizaphale’s last blog post..Random Thoughts From the End of the Week
3 Jessica K // Mar 21, 2008 at 1:57 pm
teeheehee! I know it wasn’t funny at the time, but that is hilarious!
In my neighborhood you don’t need a freecycle website. We just sit anything we don’t want by the curb and an hour later it’s magically gone. I don’t know if someone patrols our neighborhood looking for nice stuff or what, but at least I don’t have to hear about the trouble with shipping god to hong kong.
Jessica K’s last blog post..Two months to go
4 Ray // Mar 21, 2008 at 3:06 pm
My wife once decided to post on her company ‘buy/sell’ board that we had a FREE couch and loveseat for whomever wanted it.
She failed to tell me she had done this, so out of the blue one afternoon, I found myself fielding literally dozens of frantic calls from people bidding to get to my house and take away my furniture.
I had no idea where this was coming from.
We have since learned to do these things differently…..
Ray’s last blog post..Snow, Beer, Toenails. You name it, it’s here today.
5 Not Afraid To Use It // Mar 21, 2008 at 4:39 pm
How could you not have added the “Hungry Like the Wolf” mp3 as well? If that wolf really needs a crate, I’ll bet there was snackage somewhere and Fluffy won’t be coming home.
Nice of you to try and get it back for the HongKong freak, though. That was def good karma points on your end.
Not Afraid To Use It’s last blog post..The Pathetic Moment Award Goes To…
6 Your Underwhelming Narrator // Mar 21, 2008 at 5:37 pm
Yeah, NATUI, I don’t know why Duran Duran didn’t pop into my head when thinking about wolf songs. I’ve been listening to Radiohead a lot lately.
Ray, I’m the king of failing to communicate important information. Kind of assume that once I know it, everyone does.
Jess, that’s how we got rid of stuff when leaving the States, but the Brits frown on that sort of thing. They do not, however, frown on throwing chip packets and cans of beer all over the place, however…
7 Maggie // Mar 21, 2008 at 6:22 pm
HOLY HELL how I am laughing my ass off right now!
“He has a wolf and he’s having some, err, problems”
ohmygod I can’t catch my breath….
Maggie’s last blog post..The Last Run (insert eyeroll here.)
8 Busy Dad Mumbles // Mar 22, 2008 at 4:02 pm
Ah! Proof that no good deed goes unpunished!
When we lived in Germany years ago the freecycling was called junking day. You could literally walking up and down the street to pick out anything you wanted. Really cool when you are a kid on a limited budget.
We have the same thing happen each time we have put an ad in the paper participating in a yard sale. We had folks come the night before asking if they could walk through the items. We also had a person knock on our door at 5:00 a.m. for a 7:00 a.m. yard sale. No more advertising.
Great post. Thanks.
Your post is after the fact. Another blogger I read has 67 kids coming to her house for an Easter Egg hunt. The world has truly gone mad!
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