Yee Haw

We finally timed something right.

We've had this portable air conditioning unit since I was 9 months pregnant with A. and we were in the middle of a heat spell. We joined a huge crowd battling over air conditioners at Fry's Electronics and beat everyone into submission with threats of delivering the baby right then and there if they didn't back off and let us buy the only floor model left. We eventually got central air (the best invention in the whole wide world and I never want to live again in a house without it*) so we could have more than one tolerable room in the house.

So we've been trying to unload this air conditioner forever. It sat unsold on e-bay, even at 1/2 the original price. So we cut the price way down to $175 and listed it on craig's list last night. In a stroke of luck, today was the hottest day of the year so far and we got no less than 14 queries. Some tried to barter, but several said, "I'll pay cash and I'll come pick it up right now." I'm a nice seller and I sent everyone a quick e-mail saying it was gone, and one guy wrote back, "OK, but I really need it." Oh, OK - I guess I should've had people rate how much they need it and go by that.

"Ah, you're in an aluminum mobile home? Sorry, you've been trumped by the two old people in the teepee with dark leather walls. But if a pregnant chick comes along, she beats everybody."

Anyway, I also sold my breast pump today too. Had no problem letting it go, which surprised me. The small wad of cash might have had something to do with that. Almost paid for the first month of A's preschool.

*I grew up in an inland valley where the temps regularly reached 100 or more during the summer, and we didn't have air conditioning. I know, I know, cry me a river, but really, it sucked. My mom kept saying we didn't need a/c because the sun went over our house from side to side, instead of from front to back. Yeah, well, it still went over the house and made it hot as hell. Us Irish people are a boggy, misty people and we wilt in the direct sun and heat. Hey, another reason to move to Portland.